


Building Trust (Honeymustard)

by Huntz711



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Cinnamon Roll, Crying, Fluff, Hugs, I honestly was guessing on how to do it, M/M, Shipping, this was my first fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 01:56:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11220864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntz711/pseuds/Huntz711
Summary: Sans is used to this abuse. He's used to being treated like a dog, no better than dirt under one's foot. Stretch disagrees.I have no clue how to summary. It's just honeymustard, okay?Oh by the way the whole thing's already in wattpad I'm just being lazy putting it here(I have the same username there)





	1. Punished

Sans woke up at his sentry station to Boss's gloved fist speeding towards his face. The force of the blow sent him tumbling backwards, groping at his eye socket. The spiked knuckles of the glove had dug into the edge of his socket, causing cracks above it. 

"SANS YOU LAZY PIECE OF SHIT!" Boss screamed at him, advancing towards his shape huddled on the ground. 

He began to repeatedly kick Sans' rib cage, making him curl in on himself. 

"Boss! Please, stop! I'll be good! I won't-AAAAHHHH!" he was cut off by another kick, this one harder, sending him flying into the trunk of a tree. He could feel his ribs fracturing at the impact.

"I don't care. You're useless. I don't know why I even bother with you. Sit down at your post and don't fall asleep again, and I may not be as hard on you when you get home. If you're late, don't even bother to set foot in the house." Papyrus growled, beginning to walk away.

Sans lay in the snow, tears stinging in the corners of his closed eye sockets. His ribs hurt like hell. Nonetheless, he picked himself up and dragged himself over to his station, sitting back down in it. He pulled up his shirt and examined his ribs. One was broken, and not a single one wasn't cracked in some way. Dull red bone marrow covered all of them. He sighed, summoning his limited magic to heal the broken rib as best as he could. 

He did not fall asleep again. 

Realizing it was time to go back home, he began the walk back to his Boss's house, trying to mask the limp he had gotten from an old beating.

Slowly pacing up to the house, he opened the door. 

"P-Permission to enter?" he tugged at his collar.

Boss leaned out of the kitchen. "Granted."

He walked in and sat down on the ground by the couch. His Boss brought out a small plate of spaghetti and gave it to him. 

"I already ate." Boss said. 

Sans watched him. 

"EAT." Boss snarled.

Sans quickly ate the small plate of spaghetti, and looked up at his Boss. 

"Go clean the dish, then come back out here." The taller skeleton ordered. 

Sans did so, deliberately carrying out the chore very slowly, fearing the punishment he was sure was coming. After finishing, he walked shakily back out into the living room and stood, sweating.

Without warning, Papyrus lashed out and punched him, knocking him over. He kicked the small skeleton in the ribs over and over, staining Sans's clothes with bone marrow before grabbing him with blue magic and holding him up. He reached under Sans's shirt and grabbed a rib, yanking on it until it pulled out with a sickening crack. Sans screamed. Boss dropped him and kicked him twice more before speaking.

"I'm going easy on you tonight. I want you to get up an hour earlier tomorrow morning. Now get out of my sight, and don't you fucking dare cry about it." Boss growled.

Sans nodded and struggled to pick himself up. He made it halfway to the stairs before collapsing, and had to crawl the rest of the way to his room. He could feel his Boss's eyes on his back, mocking him. 

He reached his room and dropped onto the floor, wrapping himself with the blanket that served as his only bedding. He attempted to fall asleep. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he began to drift off. Finally falling into slumber, he unknowingly curled up tighter as he was pulled into a nightmare. 

Sans woke up with a small gasp, sweating. Luckily, he hadn't screamed after waking from the nightmare. He had been trained not to scream by beatings from Boss for doing so. He glanced at the clock. 3:45. Good, he could still get about an hour of shuteye before Boss made him get up. He felt exhausted, and it didn't take him long to doze off...

He awoke fourteen minutes later to a kick to the ribs. 

"Augh! Boss, it's not even five yet!" He whimpered.

"YOU OBVIOUSLY WEREN'T LISTENING LAST NIGHT WHEN I TOLD YOU TO GET UP AN HOUR EARLY!" Papyrus fumed. "YOU'RE SO FUCKING USELESS!"

"s-sorry boss... i-"

"I don't care. Get up now and get to your station. Don't bother to get breakfast."

He got up quickly and pulled his worn jacket on before walking as fast as he could out the door and towards his sentry station. He walked with his hood up, limping as fast as he could with his bad leg, hoping he wouldn't be seen. 

He could still feel his brother's foot coming down onto his calf, splitting the bone and mangling it past repair. The Boss had been furious when he had found Sans sleeping at his sentry post. He had grabbed the smaller skeleton, waking him up roughly as he threw him to the ground and held him down with his magic. He had then slammed his foot into Sans' leg, causing it to crack. Afterwards, he picked him up and tossed him into a tree like a ragdoll. The Boss had then left him to heal his leg enough to walk home to another beating.

Since then, The Boss had been much more strict in dealing with Sans. Chances to sleep were made scarce, as well as chances to eat. Beatings were a normal part of his daily life now, and he often wondered how he was still alive. 

Reaching his sentry post, Sans sat down and put his head down on the counter. He didn't mean to fall asleep, just to rest his eyes, but his exhausted body got the better of him, and he dozed off.

He awoke to his soul being turned blue. He looked up to see Boss staring at him. He was furious. Dropping him on the ground, Boss strode towards him. 

Sans felt a sharp pain in his ribs and curled in on himself. He heard another ping and was being lifted off the ground by his soul. His brother pulled his shirt up and grabbed a rib, yanking on it. 

Sans screamed. "STOP! PLEASE! NOT ANOTHER! I SWEAR I'LL BE GOOD! I WON'T-"

"SHUT UP." Boss pulled the rib out.

Sans shut his eyesockets, squeezing tears out of them as he tried to hold in another scream. Too much noise would only make his situation worse. 

Boss summoned a bone shaped like a knife. Poising it above another rib, he began slowly shaving off layers of bone. He finished shaving off an entire rib, and moved to another. That was finished, and another was started. 

Sans whimpered, clenching the edge of his jacket in his fists to keep from letting out a yell of pain. He began to slowly lose conciousness. yes, just pass out, please, then i won't have to feel this anymore. Unfortunately, Boss had noticed his half-unconcious state, and moved the knife to Sans' hand. He began to shave away layers of bone on Sans' fingers and palms, causing the most amount of pain possible. 

Sans couldn't take it anymore. He screamed loudly, causing his brother to become more angry.

Dropping Sans on the ground, he began repetitively kicking his ribs, causing the small skeleton to curl in on himself again. He began to sob.

"Shut up you useless piece of shit! Why do I even bother to take care of such a fucking idiot! You had one job! ONE! JOB! How hard is it to stay awake? Are you really that fucking lazy? I let you sleep in this morning and when you didn't get up on time, I let you off easy! Are you really so ungrateful??" He stopped kicking Sans. 

Sans lay there, silent tears streaming down his face. 

"Get out of my sight. Don't even think about coming home tonight."

Sans dragged himself to his feet and limped into the forest. Dropping behind a tree, he curled once again into a ball. 

0.9/1 hp

Boss was right. He was useless. Why couldn't he just die?

0.8/1 hp

He wished he could just hurry up and die. What was taking so long?

-underswap-

Paps stared at the blueprints on the counter. Ever since he had found them in the junkyard, he had been curious as to what they were for. Now was the time to find out, he guessed. Months of scavenging for parts and poring over notes had finally paid off. The machine stood before him, every last detail an exact match to the blueprints. Welp, no better time than the present. He thought.

Papyrus activated the machine. At first, nothing happened. A moment of silence preceded a loud rattling sound coming from the machine. That was never good, and Papyrus knew it. 

He sprinted out of the lab just before he heard a loud bang coming from the room. Thankfully, whatever had happened hadn't damaged the house.

His phone rang. He answered.

"'sup?"

"P-papyrus, are you o-okay? M-my computer just detected a m-magical fluctuation in your area! What happened?"

"nothin'. i just tested that machine and it exploded. no need to worry, though, everything's fine."

"T-the fluctuations were from something big. I've seen the blueprints for that machine, and nothing in it could have caused this."

"hmmm welp, i don't see what we could could do about it right now. i'll keep an eyesocket out for anything strange."

"O-ok, just... if you see anything, call me first thing."

"whatever, undyne. bye."

"B-bye."

Paps walked around the house to the front door. Pulling a cigarette out of his pocket, he lit it and entered. Immediately as he entered, he was tackled by a blue blur. 

"PAPSWHATWASTHATIHEARDANEXPLOSIONCOMINGFROMYOURLAB!" Sans shouted.

Papyrus shrugged. "i dunno bro."

Sans noticed the cigarette. "GET THAT FILTH OUT OF YOUR MOUTH RIGHT THIS MINUTE!" he yelled, slapping it away. 

"ok, bro. hey, i was wondering... could i go on patrol with you today?" Paps asked.

Sans' eyes turned into literal stars."YES!!!"

"well then, what are we waiting for?" Paps questioned.

"YOU!" Sans yelled, speeding out the door. "MWEH HEH HEH! I BET I'LL BEAT YOU TO MY SENTRY STATION!"

"uh-huh." Papyrus teleported to the station. 

Two minutes later, Sans arrived. 

"HEY, YOU CHEATED! NO TELEPORTING!" He yelled.

"we never established any rules." Paps said lazily. 

"WHATEVER. WE SHOULD START THE PATROL OR WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE GETTING BACK." Sans said.

"ok bro. hey, how about we split up and make double time!" 

"THAT'S AN AMAZING IDEA! CERTAINLY WORTHY OF THE MAGNIFICENT SANS!!"

"ok bro. I'll go backwards, and you go forward, and we'll meet in the middle."

The skeletons split up and began the patrol.

\- -

UF sans

0.7/1 hp.

Wait.

0.6/1 hp.

No.

0.5/1 hp.

Stop!

0.4/1 hp.

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" he yelled.

\- -

"I DON... O DIE!!"

Papyrus heard a voice in the distance. It sounded like Sans!

\- -

0.3/1 hp.

NO!

0.2/1 hp.

No

0.1/1 hp.

no...

A blurry figure approached him. He felt himself being picked up. He struggled weakly, only making the hold on him stronger. He felt his soul being checked. This was it. Whoever this was would recognize the nature of his soul: free EXP.

Instead of attacks, his vision was filled with green. Was this death? It wasn't so bad... maybe he could just... drift off...

\- -

Papyrus had followed in the direction of the voice. Finding the source, he closed in on it and investigated. It was indeed Sans. But... not his Sans. This skeleton's eye socket was cracked. He was small. Way smaller than the Sans Paps knew. The biggest difference, however, was that this Sans' teeth were sharpened to a point, and one was gold. 

Paps picked him up. The skeleton struggled for a moment, but Papyrus held him tighter. He pulled this Sans' soul out and CHECKed it. He flinched at the low readings. 0.1/1. Acting fast, Papyrus called upon his magic and healed the small skeleton as best he could. He wasn't too good at healing, but he couldn't just do nothing. He began to make his way back to where he and Sans had started the patrol. Hopefully his younger brother would reach the halfway point, realize something was up, and come running. In the meantime, though, he should probably call Undyne.

Pulling out his phone, he found her number in his contacts and tapped 'call.' 

He got an answer almost immediately.

"H-hi."

"hey, undyne, guess what?"

"What?"

"i think i found your "fluctuation"."

"What?!" 

"just come over to my house at 11:00 tomorrow morning. see you then." 

Without waiting for an answer, he hung up.

Sitting down with his back against a tree, he brought up Sans' soul again and CHECKed it once more.

0.6/1.

Not much, but an improvement.

As he had suspected, it wasn't long until Sans came running. 

"PAPYRUS! WHERE WERE YOU! I- WHO IS THAT?"

"i think he's you, bro." Paps answered.

"WHAT DO YOU MEA- OH MY GOSH! WHO IS THIS??"

"we should get him back to the house. here." He held out his hand. "i'll teleport us there."

"I HATE TELEPORTING." Sans pouted, but grudgingly obliged, grabbing Pap's hand.

When they arrived, Papyrus laid the other Sans down on the couch. 

"hey, sans."

"YES?"

"how about you go over to alphys' house? i bet she'll want to make tacos."

"OH MY GOSH YES!! BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS GUY?"

"i can take care of him." Papyrus said.

"OKAY! THANKS, PAPS!" Sans ran out the door.

Good. Now that his bro was gone, he could focus on the task at hand...


	2. Red, calm down, sheesh!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He needs to calm down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know how to title

Papyrus pulled Sans- er... this was getting confusing.... uhhhmmm Red. Yes, Red! Papyrus pulled Red's jacket off and stopped to draw in a breath when he saw cuts and bruises riddled all down both arms. Who would do this to another person? The lack of jacket on the smaller skeleton made him notice the red collar looped around his neck. There was a tag attached to it. It read: Property of Papyrus, head of the royal guard. If found, return immediately or die a painful death. 

A collar.

With his own name in it.

Paps almost screamed.

After calming down, he pulled Red's shirt off and nearly yelled when he saw the condition of his ribs. Many of them were fractured and all were covered in the same sort of injuries as his arms. Three were missing, and one looked as if it had been half carved off with a knife. All of them were caked in dust and dried bone marrow.

Papyrus let out a breath and teleported into his room. Looking for some sort of clothing to put on the skeleton, he noticed an old shirt of his. It would be way too big for Red, and it would serve its purpose well. He was about to teleport into Sans’ room when he remembered the jacket. He hadn't worn it since he was ten, but had kept it because it was warm and shouldn't go to waste. Pulling the dark orange jacket out of his closet, he draped it over his shoulder and proceeded to teleport into Sans’s room. Searching through his brothers closet, he found an older pair of black sweatpants that probably didn't even fit the younger skeleton anymore, and a blue t-shirt.

Teleporting back down to Red, he put his shirt onto the small skeleton. He looked adorable in it. It was like a long dress on him and it made him look even smaller and oh, Toriel, he was so damn cute.

He decided not to get distracted from the task at hand, and pulled Red’s shorts off him. As planned, the shirt covered him enough so Papyrus couldn't see anything... well... he could see the skeleton's maimed leg... How would that have even happened? Paps would heal it later. One task at a time, he thought to himself.

Now came the tricky part. How was he going to get these sweatpants onto the unconcious skeleton? He could try turning Red’s soul blue but he didn't know how well that would go over. There didn't seem to be any other option though, so he activated his magic and turned Red’s small, weak soul blue with a soft ping.

Holding the skeleton up by his soul, he was able to get the sweatpants onto Red. He released the hold on the soul and gently dropped him back on the couch. He pulled the shirt back off and set it to the side. Pulling Sans’ old shirt onto Red, he made sure not to touch any of the broken ribs because it would probably hurt like hell. 

Last, he put his old jacket on Red. Now that he was done, he could get a load going in the washing machine to clean Red’s grimy, dirt-covered clothes. 

Having started the load, Papyrus walked back over to where Red was on the couch. Activating his magic once more, he began to heal the small skeleton. He started with Red's leg, and slowly moved up from there. When he reached Red's ribs, he tried to send the most magic possible into them to give them a boost. To his surprise, all three missing ribs regenerated, as well as the half-rib. They were still scarred and bruised, but it was much better than he had expected. Placing his hands on Red's skull, he began to heal the numerus cuts and bruises dotting small monster's head. He was able to heal most of them, but the crack on Red's eye socket refused to diminish in size. 

He gave up and stood. He draped a blanket over Red. The small skeleton cuddled into the warmth provided by it, and fell deeper into unconciousness.

-

Sans woke up feeling warm and safe. It was nice. He curled up slightly and just lay there contentedly.

...until he came to his senses.  
Where am I?! Wait... Boss's house!!? Why am I on the couch!? Where's Boss?  He calmed himself as quickly as he could and scanned his surroundings. It was definitely Boss's house... but it didn't smell like dust and bone marrow... and the colors were brighter. There were also no tears or stains in the wallpaper.

Sans decided to get up. He attempted to stand, only to find that he was wrapped in a blanket. He tumbled to the ground with a small cry.

He slowly picked himself back up and examined himself. His eye was still cracked, but it no longer throbbed like it had. He checked his leg, and it was almost completely healed. He felt his ribs. None were missing. Who healed me? He asked himself. Boss wouldn't 'waste' the magic on me... but who else could it have been? He limped into the kitchen and saw no one there.

Tentatively, he walked over began climbing the stairs. He had about reached the top when he lost his balance... he began to teeter on the edge of the step before letting out a loud cry and falling down the staircase. 

Or... he would have been falling down the staircase if he wasn't suspended in mid-air by his soul, which was now a deep blue.   
He looked up to see Boss, one hand on the door frame, and the other extended with a bluish hue coming off of it. He was focusing intently on the smaller skeleton. 

Suddenly, Sans felt himself being dropped, and let out a yell before he was caught by something warm. Wait... how had Boss gotten behind him? What was even going on!? 

"so... whatcha tryin' to do there?" paps asked, maybe a bit too harshly. 

Sans struggled and attempted to escape the hold of the other, but nothing happened. He felt that it was in vain, however, and stopped. 

"b-boss! i'm sorry! please don't punish me!" He begged

"sheesh, kid. it's okay, you didn't do anything. i'm not gonna hurtcha!" Where had he gotten that idea?!

Sans didn't seem to trust him, and struggled more, before falling onto the floor as it became too hard for Paps to hold him.

"ack!" He scooted into a corner and curled into a ball, trembling. "i'll be g-good! p-please! don't hurt m-me!"

He kept pleading for a while before falling into unconsciousness.

Sans hid behind the couch, stifling a cry. Bone marrow dripped down his skull and from his ribs. Boss was searching for him. I shouldn't have run away, I made it worse and now he's gonna hurt me more! I'm such a fucking screw-up! He flinched as he was yanked up by his collar to face his Boss. He was shoved roughly to the ground before he felt Papyrus's boot putting pressure on his skull.

"Sans. I am very disappointed in you. What have I told you? Don't. Run. Away. From. Me." He accented his speech by pushing his foot down harder at every word.

"You're so useless... if you screw up again I may have to seek out a different use for you."

It took Sans a moment to process this. When he did, he was shocked.

"no! b-boss, please! i s-swear i'll be good!" He begged.

"I've heard that one before. You'd better not be lying this time. Even so... I think you need a better reminder for once." Papyrus stepped on his shoulder, crushing his collar bone. 

Sans screamed.

"Quiet." Boss snarled.

Summoning a bone, he raised it above his head and brought it crashing down onto Sans, fracturing a couple ribs. Papyrus repeatedly rained blow after blow down onto Sans, not caring how much damage the now marrow-covered bone was doing. 

Sans fell into unconsciousness. 

He woke up sweating, letting out a strangled whimper. Looking around, he noticed that he was still in the same house. He looked around once again, but was stopped when he noticed a familiar face looking at him from the kitchen.

Boss.

Sans scrambled off of the couch, and backed up against the wall, expecting a blow, but none came.

"are you okay?" Paps asked. 

Red made a confused noise. 

Just then, the door slammed open, causing Papyrus to jump and Red to yelp in surprise. 

"HELLO, BROTHER! I HAVE RETURNED!"


	3. Insane

Papyrus sat on the couch in his house, wondering what he should do. His pastimes at home usually included beating up his useless brother, but Sans wasn't there. Maybe I was too harsh on him... Papyrus thought. No. That idiot deserved what he got. 

Papyrus slept on the couch that night. He never slept on the couch. In the morning, he woke up feeling hungry.

He stood and headed towards the kitchen. He stopped, however, when he saw the state of his house. He had always been blind to it, but now that he actually looked at it, he noticed the many year's worth of stains from bone marrow, almost covering the walls. Dust was caked into the carpet, and the wallpaper had rips and tears from when he had thrown his brother against the wall and a piece of broken bone had caught on it.

Every beating he had forced his brother through hit him full on, and he staggered backwards and fell onto the couch. The walls seemed to whisper, echoes of Sans's unanswered screams and pleas filled Papyrus's mind. Every word he had said to hurt his brother, every beating, came back to haunt him. He needed to right his wrongs. He stood up and proceeded towards the door.

He was filled with determination.

He walked out the door and strode with a wavering confidence through town. Reaching Sans's sentry post, he took a right and ventured into the woods in the direction Sans had gone. 

After checking the area through and seeing no sign of Sans, he began to leave. He was stopped when he saw something red in the snow. Racing over to it, he felt his non-existent heart drop. The redness he had seen was bone marrow. He dug into the snow, feeling more and more uneasy when he saw his deep the stain went. He reached the ground under the snow and saw that it, too, was stained red. He glanced around, looking for any other sign of his brother. He was about to stand up when he noticed the dust. There wasn't much, but the sight of it made him feel sick. He looked closer, and saw that the area was covered in a thin layer of dust. He knew this dust. He had seen it before. He had seen it in small piles around his brother after a particular harsh beating. He knew this dust, and he wished he didn't. The rest would have blown away by now.

What have I done? 

Almost devoid of feeling, Papyrus began to sort through the snow, getting as much of the dust as possible into a pile. He pulled his scarf off and used it as a sort of bag, scooping the remnants of his brother into it. He cradled it to himself and began the walk back to his house.

Upon reaching it, he crossed the threshold and set his brother's dust carefully on the table. He sat down on the couch, still devoid of feeling. Something broke inside him. 

Papyrus curled into a ball and wept. He wept for all the terrible things he had done. He wept for his brother. He wept for the fact that when he finally realized he was wrong, it was too late. 

He ran out of tears and began to fall asleep. But the walls began their whispering once again. 

It's your fault. He's dead and it's your fault. You didn't even care. You killed him on purpose and now he's gone. Aren't you happy?

The whispers, along with the memories, rose in a crescendo until they were all that existed. One memory, however, drowned out the rest, pulling him into it. 

The cold wind battered against them. He was behind his brother, being protected from the storm. The small amount of food his brother had found was not enough, and he felt very hungry. His brother's stomach rumbled loudly. Sans had not eaten any food, having given it all to Papyrus. His bones were beginning to freeze, but still, he stayed at the front of their little hovel, blocking his little brother from the wind. Always protecting.

Why did he do that for me?

You know the answer, the voices said. You've always known. It's because he loved you. He loved you and what did you do for him? You beat him and threatened him and made him feel like nothing. He still loved you. He was always hoping for any small amount of affection, and what did you give him? YOU KILLED HIM!

"SHUT UP!" Papyrus yelled. 

The whispers continued. For hours they continued. The guilt was so much to bear, but it was all his. He was alone, and he deserved it. He began listening to them.

Days passed, and Papyrus stayed on the couch, listening. He snapped. 

"It's my fault... haha! I did that to him, it's my fault. Hahaha! He tried to protect me and I did this to him. He tried to protect me from them... Them! I'll kill them! HAHAHAHA!" The whispers had taken over.

Papyrus dashed outside, laughing crazily. A bunny lady who was walking in front of his house was stopped by a bone protruding from her stomach. Papyrus laughed as she fell to dust.

Your EXP increased.

Papyrus headed towards the outskirts of Snowdin. A snowdrake in the area was impaled by a bone.

By the end of the day, Snowdin was empty. He searched for more victims.

But nobody came.

Waterfall was soon emptied. 

Hotland was barren.

The core was silent.

"Hello, Asgore."

"Wha-augh!" 

The king of monsters fell with a single attack. 

Papyrus.   
Lv: 100   
Exp: 10332   
Hp: 666,666

A human fell into the underground.  
(Uh-oh, lol)  
-  
Sans was about to say something else, but was cut off when he saw Red. 

"HELLO, NEW FRIEND!" He ran over before Red could react and engulfed him in a hug.

Red gave a surprised whimper and began shaking.

"uhh... red, are you okay?"

"RED? IS THAT HIS NAME?"

"well... no, it's what i've been referring to him as."

"OH! WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

"s-sans..."

"HEY THAT'S MY NAME TOO!" He gasped. "PAPS! IF HE'S RED, CAN I BE BLUE?!"

"yeah, okay."

Just then, Red's stomach growled loudly. Blue looked at him.

"s-sorry!" He quickly apologized.

"ARE YOU HUNGRY?" Blue questioned.

"n-no..." His stomach rumbled again, giving him away.

Blue picked him up and marched into the kitchen. Setting him down, he pulled some leftover tacos out of the fridge. Taking six, he put them in the microwave and waited. 

When they were done, he pulled them out and offered one to Red, who tentatively took it. Blue sat down on the floor next to him and gestured for Pap to join them. The lanky skeleton shrugged and sat down by his brother, receiving two tacos. They waited for Red to take the first bite.

When he didn't do anything, Blue said "YOU CAN EAT, IF YOU WANT."

"i-i have to wait for b-boss... it's the rules."

"kid, i'm not your boss. you can eat whenever you want to." Papyrus was completely unsure of what to say.

Apparantly, he said the right thing, because Red took an unsure bite of the taco before his eyes lit up and he completely devoured the rest. 

"is it good?" paps asked, taking an experimental bite of his own taco.

"y-yeah, it's really good! would be better with mustard, though." He mumbled the last part.

"mustard?"

"y-yeah..." He shrank under Paps's curious gaze. "s-sorry..." 

"it's okay, kid. do you want some mustard?"

"y-yes! please..." 

"heh. okay." Papyrus got up and went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of mustard from the back. After a moment of pondering, he closed the fridge and grabbed a bottle of honey from a cupboard. Walking back to his spot, he sat down and handed the mustard to Red and taking a self of his own beverage.

Red sipped at his mustard, eyeing the tacos

"DO YOU WANT ANOTHER ONE?"

"i-i can have a-another?"

"OF COURSE!"

Red reached out and took another taco. After squirting mustard all over it, he took a bite and finished it as fast as the first.

"t-thank you."

"IT'S NO PROBLEM! MWEH HEH HEH!"

Red glanced at Paps, who gave him a smile and a thumbs-up.

Papyrus realized that Red was still covered in dust and bone marrow. 

"hey, red... do you need a bath?" He asked.

"i-i don't know..."

"when was the last time you had one?" 

"...t-two months ago..."

Blue was shocked. "YOU NEED A BATH, RIGHT NOW! I'LL GET IT STARTED. YOU GUYS CLEAN UP THE KITCHEN AND MEET ME UP THERE."

"hey, red?" Paps asked when he left.

Red flinched. "y-yeah?"

"when i changed your clothes, i healed a lot of wounds... who gave them to you?"

"b-boss did..."

"who's boss?" Papyrus geared the answer.

"m-my b-brother..." Red broke into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edgy


	4. Pancakes and Flowers

"what." Papyrus was struggling to hold in his anger.

"s-sorry!" Red cringed and held his arms in front of himself defensively.

Shit. "it's okay, i'm not mad at you!" Papyrus tried to calm Red down.

"y-you're not?"

"no, of course not! you didn't do anything! why would i be mad?" He was confused.

"b-boss is always mad... he s-says i'm an idiot a-and that i need to be punished." Red remembered all of the times that boss had screamed insults at his damaged, shaking form after a beating.

He started to tear up and tremble. Papyrus reached over and pulled Red into a hug.

"he's not here now. you're safe. i'm not going to let anyone hurt you, bro."

A small gasp came from Red and he started to sob. He wrapped his arms around Paps and he let it all out. His shuddering sobs were the only noise in the room. Papyrus picked him up and moved over to the couch, sitting down.  Red's crying subsided and he looked up at Papyrus. "y-you called me bro.." It was such a small thing, but the feeling it gave him was  the best thing he'd felt in a while.

"well of course i called you bro. i mean technically you're my brother even if you are from another universe."

Red hugged Papyrus tighter as a new wave of tears hit him. The lanky skeleton returned the gesture and Red cuddled into the warmth. His sobs subsided and sleep took over. 

"RED, THE BATH IS REA-" Blue was cut off  by the sight of Red and his brother cuddling on the couch, asleep.

Both of the skeletons were smiling in their sleep, even though Blue could clearly see tear stains on Red's face.  

He smiled.  "I guess it can wait." he said quietly to himself.

Walking up to his room, he sat down on the bed and glanced at the clock. It was 8:39. _It IS a bit late..._ he said to himself.

He climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling for a while before falling asleep.

-

_Papyrus was standing in Snowdin Forest. He was quite enjoying himself, doing nothing out here where there was no one to tell him otherwise. He heard snow crunching and quickly hid behind a tree. Leaning out from the side of the tree, he was surprised to see a human walking out of the old door.  He began to follow them. Reaching the big stick that had been in the middle of the path for  as long as he could remember, he summoned a bone right through it and it broke with a resounding crack. He teleported away and watched  for the human's reaction. nothing.  They didn't even look up. huh. They reached the "gate thingie" Blue had made. He walked slowly up behind them and was surprised when they  spun around and stuck out their hand. A trickle of sweat rolled down the back of his skull and he reluctantly took their hand and shook it. It was dusty. A fart noise came from the whoopie cushion in his hand. No reaction_ _._

_The scene changed._

_"OH? ARE YOU OFFERING A HUG OF ACCEPTANCE? MWEH HEH HEH! MY LESSONS ARE ALREADY WORKING!! I, THE MAGNIFICENT SANS, WELCOME YOU WITH OPEN ARMS!" The human lunged at him and swung a knife. Blue clutched his chest and fell to the ground._

_"WELL... THAT'S NOT WHAT I EXPECTED, BUT STILL, I BELIEVE IN YOU. YOU CAN BE A GOOD PERSON. YOU CAN CHANGE, EVEN IF YOU DON'T THINK SO. I... I PROMISE." Blue turned to dust._

_Golden light replaced the snowy atmosphere.  "if you take one more step, you're really not going to like what happens next." The human stepped forward._

_"welp. sorry, old man. this is why i never make promises." papyrus said. The fight that followed was gruesome._

_"i guess that's it then, huh? don't say you weren't warned. welp, i'm going to muffet's. sans.... what would you like?" he turned to dust._

Papyrus shot up from the couch with a yell, accidentally waking Red in the process. Oblivious to the world around him, he fell onto the floor and began to hyperventilate. It was so real... what was that?

Red dashed to his side, shaking. "p-papyrus? a-are you o-okay?"

  "huh?! wha-" 

Red enveloped him in a hug. He blushed and hugged back.

"what was it?" Red asked.

"just a nightmare." paps answered. "welp, i'm definitely not gonna be able to fall asleep again, so do you want to help me make breakfast?"

"o-ok! what are we going to make?"

"i dunno. i was thinking pancakes." Papyrus responded.

"w-what are pancakes?"  

"okay yeah we're making pancakes. follow me and i'll show you."

Red followed Papyrus into the kitchen and watched curiously as he pulled out a box of something, a gallon of milk, a carton of eggs, a bottle of cooking oil, and a mixing bowl. 

"hey, red, can you get in that drawer there and get me the biggest pan you can find?" Papyrus requested. 

"o-okay!" Red said, eager to please.

He opened the drawer and found the biggest pan in it. Walking over to Papyrus, he set it on the stove next to him. Papyrus had carefully measured the ingredients into the bowl while he had been doing so.

"want to stir?" Paps asked.

"s-sure!" Red took the mixing spoon off the counter and  began to vigorously stir the ingredients. 

Pancake mix got everywhere. Including all over Papyrus.

"i'm s-sorry!" Red whimpered.

"pfff-nyeheheh! it's-nyeh- it's fine. heh!"  Red realized that Paps was laughing at him.

He pouted, crossing his arms. _I didn't even know i could do this._ He said to himself, realizing how stupid he probably looked. Papyrus, on the other hand, saw this action and couldn't stop staring at the pile of adorableness in front of him. _HE'S SO CUTE HOLY SHIT._

"here, let me show you how to do it." Papyrus said gently.

Taking the spoon, he began to slowly stir the ingredients until they were completely mixed together. Reaching around Red, he turned the stove on under the pan.

-

Blue awoke to the smell of pancakes. Shooting up from his bed, he ran downstairs and into the kitchen.  "YOU MADE PANCAKES?? YOU SHOULD HAVE WOKEN ME UP!" He said, irritated.

"sorry, bro. i didn't want to wake you up because i thought you'd be 'bone' tired. we're done with the pancakes though, so you may as well eat."

Red proudly carried the pancakes out of the kitchen. Paps went to get some plates and utensils, and the three skeletons sat down to enjoy the meal. It soon became apparent that they had too many pancakes and couldn't eat them all. They were deliberating on what to do when there was a knock on the door. Paps stood up and opened it.

"H-hi, Papyrus." 

"oh, 'sup undyne?"

"Y-you told me to be here a-at 11:00."

"ohhhhh yeaaaahhhhhhh" Papyrus facepalmed.

-

Flowey sat/stood (??? help) in the shaft of sunlight from the surface. _I wonder if Sans is okay..._ he thought. He had met the skeleton a few weeks before. He'd healed him after one of Papyrus's beatings, and they had talked for a while, before Flowey had to leave. They'd talked a few times through the door to the Ruins since then, and had become friends. Flowey hadn't heard from him in a while, though.

 _I think I'll go check on him._ He plunged into the ground and came up beside Sans's Snowdin sentry post. He wasn't there. Flowey then headed to the post in Waterfall. No luck. He wasn't in Hotland either. Now that he thought of it, no one was in Hotland.  He hadn't seen anyone in Waterfall or Snowdin. _Where is everyone?_  Checking everywhere he could, he still found no one. Gulping, he transplanted (instead of transported lol) himself to Snowdin. In the middle of town, he saw something. Carefully advancing towards it, he realized with sudden horror that it was Sans's brother.

Papyrus was mumbling to himself. "He's alive. He's alive. He's alive. He wants to watch me suffer. He's alive and he watched me do this. He's alive. He's Alive. He'S ALIVE!!!!! BUT HE WON'T BE FOR LONG WHEN I FIND HIM!!!! NYEH! NYEHEHEH!!!! NYEHEHEHEHEH!!!!!"

Flowey transplanted himself back to the ruins... and almost got squashed by a child falling.  "Ack!!" 

The human sat up and rubbed their head. "Huh?" 

"Oh, you're a human! This is not good! You need to get out of here!"

"WOAH COOL, A TALKING FLOWER!!!"

  "That is NOT the point here!!"

"What's your name?" The human asked.

Flowey groaned. "I'm Flowey, Flowey the flower."

The child waited expectantly, almost stubbornly.

"Ugh. What's your name?" Flowey asked. 

"My name is Frisk!" They said cheerily.

"Well, _Frisk_ , I don't know if you know this, but there's Monsters down here... at least, there were... Regardless, we need to get you out."

Frisk put on a determined face. "How do I get out?"

"Follow me. Don't make too much noise, or Toriel will hear us." Flowey transplanted himself further along the hall and to his relief, the child followed.

When they reached Toriel's house, Flowey hid himself and beckoned with a leaf for Frisk to join him. They did, and the flower and child stayed perfectly still as a goat monster walked out of the house and down the path. When she was out of earshot, Flowey urged Frisk on. He got frustrated when they didn't do anything and had to keep himself from yelling at them. They simply ignored his frantic whispers and began to pull him from the ground. He was very confused at what they were doing until they held him against their shoulder and whispered at him to wrap his roots around their arm. When he was finished, they stood and entered the house. 

Flowey groaned as they insisted on exploring the house. "After this room, we're leaving." He whispered.  Frisk opened the door and began to examine the room. They had examined almost everything before they decided to open the wardrobe. It was full of various green sweaters. The only item that was not a sweater was a puffy dark green jacket with a yellow stripe through the middle. 

"You should probably take that." Flowey advised. "It's cold in Snowdin."

Frisk tied the jacket around their waist. Walking out of the room, they headed down the hall and began descending the staircase. 

The door to the house opened.

"Who...?" the goat monster gasped. "A human! My child, what are you doing here?" 

"Frisk, run!" Flowey urged.

The child sprinted down the stairs and began running through the hall. The goat monster gave chase.  Frisk reached the door and attempted to open it. When they couldn't, Flowey summoned huge vines and wrapped them around the door handle, tugging with all his might. The door flew open, and Frisk ran through, ignoring the blast of cold that hit them. They looked up just in time to stop themself from running straight into a figure.  Frisk dodged around the figure. Toriel wasn't so lucky. She looked down to see a bone protruding from her stomach.

*???????'s LV increased.  

*The great Papyrus no longer exists.

Frisk kept running.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I decided not to be lazy!

 

Paps facepalmed.  
"oooohhhhh yyyyeeeeaaaahhhhh. come in! i forgot i told you to be here, heh."

"I-it's okay. You said y-you found what caused the fl-fluctuations?" The scientist inquired.

"yeah. hey, red, can you come here?" Paps requested.

"o-ok..." Red walked over and stood partially behind Papyrus.

Paps took his hand. "this is red. blue and i found him in the forest yesterday."

"O-oh! H-hi, Red! Wait, who's Blue?" Undyne questioned.

"oh. duh. well, they're both sans, so we're calling him red and sans blue." Paps answered.

"Wait... th-they're both Sans? What does that even mean?"

"well, i have a theory, but it may take a bit to explain." He sat down on the couch, and Red followed suit, watching Undyne carefully.

Paps gestured for Undyne to sit. She sat next to him, and Blue sat on the other side of her. Paps continued talking.

"i think red is from a different universe. when we found him, he was almost dusted, and so beat up that he could barely move." Red cuddled into Paps at this. "I think this universe has a weak spot in that area, which allowed him to cross through with enough **determination**. His universe must have gotten close to ours, and that place in his universe lined up with ours. at that point in time, the universes were adjoined at the exact place where red was."

"W-wait. You said with enough **determination...** how would Red have determination?"

"you don't need to know that." Papyrus responded, leaving no room for arguement.

"But- ugh, forget it. So are we going to try to send Red back to his universe?"

"no!" Red said, unable to catch himself. "s-sorry! i just... i d-don't want t-to go back."

"it's okay, red, i know."

"wait.... do you think we can bring someone else here?" Red asked tentatively.

"probably. why do you ask?"

"i.... had a friend."

"S-so what are we going to do?" Undyne asked.

"WELL, FIRST OF ALL I THINK RED NEEDS A CHECK-UP!!" Blue butted in.

"yeah, he probably does." Paps agreed.

"Oh! O-okay... We'd have to go to my lab then."

"well, we can't go quite yet. we're gonna have to get ready. we'll meet you there at 1:15, ok?"

"Yeah, o-okay. I'm going to go now..."

"see ya later, 'dyne"

"BYE!"

"B-bye."

When she had left, Blue stood up. "IT'S ABOUT TIME I WENT OUT TO MY POST!" He announced.

When he had gone, Paps picked up Red and walked to the bathroom.

Setting Red back down, he pulled the plug out of the bathtub and drained the unused water from the night before. Sitting down on the ledge at the side of the tub, he patiently waited for it to drain.

"umm... paps?" Red asked.

"huh?"

"h-how did you know I had **determination**?"

Papyrus sighed. "lucky guess?"

Red looked at him doubtfully. "i'm serious."

"i know. if you really want to know..."

"t-tell me. p-please?"

Papyrus pulled his jacket off, leaving just a white tee-shirt. He turned his arm towards Red so the smaller skeleton could clearly see the bar code etched into his humerus. Under it was a code. _Wdg-1p._

"oh..." Red said softly.

They sat in silence until the water finished draining. Papyrus silently reached over and turned the water on, putting the plug back in the drain.

"undyne's different where i'm from." Red attempted to break the silence.

"what's she like?" Paps asked.

"she's the second in command in the royal guard, for one."

"who's the royal scientist?"

"alphys."

"alph is the head of the guard here."

The tub finished filling.

Papyrus stood up. "do you need any help?" He asked.

"n-no. th-thanks... bro..." the word felt strange in his mouth.

Papyrus, who had been walking out, stopped in the doorway. "no problem, brother." He said flatly.

As he turned out of the bathroom, Red saw a smile on his face.

Thirty minutes later, papyrus knocked on the bathroom door. "you done yet?" He asked.

"a-almost." Red replied.  "o-okay, i'm good." He said, a few moments later. Paps walked in and saw Red wrapped in a towel.

"i have the clothes we found you in, if you want them. they're clean now." Papyrus said.

"y-yeah, those are good." Red took the clothes. "th-thanks."

"no problem, bro."

Red smiled. Papyrus exited the room again.

Red quickly changed into his clothes, and was surprised at how comfortable they were. He put his hands in his jacket pockets, and was surprised when he didn't feel the large hole that he knew had been torn in his left pocket. He felt around in the area it had been in, and felt thread holding it together. He checked the other areas he had known harbored tears, but didn't find a single one.

 _Paps must have fixed it._ He thought.

Walking out of the bathroom, he headed over to where Papyrus was sitting on the couch.

"well, we have some extra time before we have to go to undyne's. whaddaya wanna do?"

"i-i dunno... what is there to d-do?"

"well, we could watch tv, go to muffet's, talk to the guy behind the door-"

"t-the guy behind t-the door? oh! s-sorry for interrupting...."

"nah, it's okay, kid. i tell knock-knock jokes to this guy behind the big door to the ruins. wanna meet him?"

"o-oh... sure, i guess."

"here." Papyrus held out his hand.

Red took it, and walked with Papyrus out the door. They weren't in Snowdin.

"wha- you can teleport?"

"yeah, it's faster." Papyrus kept walking, not skipping a beat.

They reached the door, and Papyrus sat, leaning against it.

Knocking twice, he said "knock knock!"

To Red's surprise, a voice answered.

"Who is there?"

"adore."

"Adore who?"

"adore's between us, please let me in!"

The voice behind the door laughed and Pap chuckled. Red joined in the laughter.

"Oh? Is there someone else there?"

Red quickly stopped laughing.

"yeah."

"Oh, hello!"

"hi..."

The two continued their knock knock jokes.

It was papyrus's turn, but the lanky skeleton couldn't seem to come up with another joke.

Red took the chance and knocked on the door. "Kn-knock knock"

"Oh! Who is there?"

"a-avenue."

"Avenue who?"

"avenue knocked on this d-door before?"

The old man laughed. Red smiled brightly and looked at Pap.

"nyeheh! that was good, kid!

After a few more jokes, it was about time to leave.

"welp, we have to leave now. same time tomorrow?"

"Yes, that would be nice! Have a wonderful day, you two!"

"right back at ya. bye."

"Goodbye."

The two skeletons walked through Snowdin forest and Red took Pap's hand. They vanished.

Arriving in Hotland, Papyrus began to lead Sans toward the lab. When they reached it, Papyrus pushed a button next to the door. Soon after, it was opened by Undyne.

"H-hi Papyrus. Hello, R-red." She greeted. "Come in!"

The pair followed her into the lab. She showed them into her office. Two chairs sat next to an operation table. A desk with an office chair also sat in the room.

"O-okay, Red, can you put this on?" She said, offering him a hospital gown.

He nodded and took it, watching as she left the room.

"do you want me to leave?" Papyrus asked.

Red shook his head, not wanting to be alone in the office. "j-just don't look."

"okay, bro." Papyrus turned away.

A shuffling was heard as Red changed into the gown.

When he was done, he looked at Papyrus. "i'm  d-done."

Papyrus turned to him and nodded, holding back a yell as he saw once more the marks of abuse all over Red. He walked to the door and opened it.

"hey, 'dyne, we're ready." He called.

"O-okay, just a m-moment!" Came her answer from down the hall.

Closing the door, he walked over and sat next to Red on the table.

Noticing the smaller skeleton was shaking, he was quick to comfort. "hey, it's okay. undyne's not gonna hurt you. she's really nice, you'll see."

Red hugged him. "thank you..."

The door opened and Papyrus hopped off the table.

Undyne walked into the office.

"W-woah." She said, seeing Red's arms and legs. "What happened to you!?"

"u-um... it's a long s-story." Read answered, uncertain of what to say.

"Oh... well, I'm going to check you over okay? I need to make sure none of those are infected"

Red shifted awkwardly. "o-okay." 

Undyne took his arm and began to examine all of the cuts and bruises.  Not finding anything, she moved to his other arm. There was nothing too bad there either.

When she moved to his leg, however, she drew in a breath.

"W-what happened to your leg?"

"b-boss broke it."

"Who's boss?"

"heyyyy let's not talk about this soooo what's wrong with his leg?"  
Papyrus interrupted, recieving a thankful look from Red.

"W-well, it's fractured. But it looks like it never got a chance to heal, so if we set it, i-it should be able to heal normally."

"o-oh, okay." Red said.

"I'd also like to bandage those other injuries, if that's okay."

"y-yeah, that's okay."

"Good. First, though, can I look at your soul?"

Red flinched. "W-why?"

"I-i just want to make sure it's healthy."

Red looked to Papyrus for confirmation. He nodded.

"o-okay..."

Undyne pulled his soul in front of her as if starting a fight. Letting it float above her hands, she began to examine it closely, careful not to hurt it.

"Your soul seems to be fine, so I think you're good to go once we put a cast on your leg and bandage your injuries."

-

About an hour later, the trio stood in the main part of the lab.

"S-so you want to stabilize the rift between the two universes and get somebody through from the other side?"

"essentially, yeah."

"I-I think I can help. Where is the rift?"

"it's in snowdin forest."

"O-okay. If we go to the dump and find the right supplies, w-we can probably get the machine done and tested today." She said.

"i can teleport us out there to save time." Papyrus said.

"O-okay." Undyne said.

Papyrus picked up Red and grabbed Undyne's sleeve, before teleporting them to the dump.

"so what kinda parts do we need?" Papyrus asked.

"Anything metal." She said, setting a large piece of cardboard on a relatively dry island of trash. "Just set it here."

After a while, a rather large pile of metal and broken electronics covered the carboard. There were pop cans, broken game consoles, part of a car, and many other pieces of junk.

"O-okay, this should be good." Alphys announced. "We just need to stop back at the lab and get my tools."

"okay, 'dyne." Paps teleported them to the outside of the lab, and Undyne walked in and soon emerged from the building carrying a toolbox and a... chainsaw?

Papyrus transported them to the area in Snowdin where Red had been found.

An hour and a half later, Papyrus looked over to Red and said "hey, red. mind gettin' me that wrench?"

"oh! sure!" He grabbed it and made his way to where Papyrus was working. "here."

"thanks. After tightening a bolt, he spoke again. "'dyne, I just finished over here, you 'bout done?"

"Almost!"

\- - -

Frisk ran through the snow and took a left off the path, hurrying into the woods. As they ran, they clumsily pulled on the jacket that was around their waist and struggled into it.

Keeping up their pace, they took a right and kept going. Leaping rather impressively over a ditch, they were about to reach a tree and climb it when they tripped and fell.

"Oof!"

"Ack! Frisk, you landed on top of m- Oh."

"What is it Flowey?" Frisk asked before looking up. "Oh." Papyrus stood above them.

Suddenly, someone behind them approached, walking fast. Picking up Flowey, who had fallen off Frisk when they tripped, he looked at him for a moment before hugging the plant.

"f-flowey?" A familiar voice asked, coming from the person.

"Sans! You're okay! I thought-" he cut himself off as he heard Frisk yelp. "Frisk!?"

He turned his head to see Papyrus picking the child up and setting them on their feet, brushing the snow off.

" _ **D O N  ' T    T O U C H   T H E M.**_ "


	6. A Little More Friendliness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to title.

" **D O N ' T   T O U C H   T H E M .** "

Papyrus looked up from Frisk to the flower that Red was holding. Its face was filled with absolute hatred. He let go of Frisk and slowly backed away with his hands up.

Meanwhile, Red was staring at Flowey trying to comprehend the situation.

"uhm... i think we may have come to a misunderstanding." Papyrus tried.

Flowey seemed to have zoned out on everything except Papyrus. He blindly summoned his "friendliness pellets" in a large circle around the tall skeleton. They slowly closed in, but stopped and vanished as a rumbling sound filled the air. Flowey looked around with a bewildered expression as the rumbling grew in intensity.  As the crescendo began to end, a loud rattling sound came after it.

Papyrus recognized it as the same one from his lab the day before. He wouldn't have thought much of it if it weren't for the fact that this machine was bigger and had more explosive parts.

_Bigger... More explosive... Oh shit._

"we need to get out of here!" Papyrus yelled. 

The rattling reached a point where it couldn't possibly get any louder, and then stopped. Papyrus took the chance, and, quicker than it seemed possible for a lazy guy like him to move, he sprinted around and gathered Red, Undyne, Flowey, and Frisk into a small group.

Summoning his magic, he teleported out of the area just before it exploded. The force of the blast shoved him further through the code than he would've liked to go, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself in Waterfall, next to a bench with a slice of quiche under it.

 _I wasn't ready for  the responsibility._ He thought. 

_Why did I just think that?_

Glancing around, he checked that they were all there. They were, but Red wasn't moving. Papyrus scrambled over to the still form leaning against the bench. 

"red? are you okay? red!" He CHECKed the smaller skeleton's soul.

_0.001/1 HP_

Papyrus gasped. " **Undyne. Help. Please.** "

Undyne began to make her way over but was stopped by a vine. Flowey transplanted himself over to Red and wrapped his vines around Papyrus, attempting to pull him away from the other. Papyrus held on with a strength born of desperation and began to heal the smaller skeleton. Green light filled the room, and it was completely silent. It was an agonizingly long time until any sign of life came from Red. The small monster shifted and made a small sound. Papyrus let out a breath and smiled, but did not stop healing. 

Ten minutes later, he hugged Red to him, content with the amount of healing he had done. He smiled and tears streamed from his eye sockets as he stood up and began to walk. Frisk, who had been curiously watching the whole thing, stood up and followed him after picking up a very confused flower. Undyne followed, but went a different way, towards Hotland. 

Paps reached his house in Snowdin completely aware of the fact that he had been followed. Leaving the door open, he walked inside and laid Red on the couch.

"you can come in." he said to the human hiding outside the door.

They tentatively walked in and stood just inside the house, unsure of what to do. 

"well, i don't think we were properly introduced. i'm papyrus. papyrus the skeleton. and you are?" 

"I'm Frisk!" They said, now completely at ease.

Papyrus certainly had a way with people. It was strange. He had the ability to make almost anyone completely calm by just being in the same room as them. It was definitely a trait he was happy to have at that moment.

"well, frisk. doncha think you should close the door? it'll get pretty _frisk_ 'in cold in here if you leave it open. though it's fine by me if you leave it open. _tibia_ honest, i don't mind it either way. no matter how _bone chilling_ it is outside, it never seems to get _under my skin_."

"Heheh! _Snow_ need to explain that to me, I get it!" Frisk exclaimed.

"nyeh! good one, kid." Papyrus said. "so, who's the edgy flower?"

"I _can_  talk, you know." Flowey hissed. "Also, can you _please_ tell me what's going on? I'm not too keen on listening to a doppelganger of a guy like Sans's brother unless I get some answers."

"well, _bud_ dy, you and your friend here came from a portal into this universe. i'm guessing it's the same universe red's from. if it is, i forgive you for nearly killing me, considering the piece of shi-uhhh... crap that is red's brother."

"Wait. Killing you?"

"so you didn't know? then i guess that really was an ac _seed_ ent."

"What do I not know?" Flowey was a bit frustrated.

"i have 1 hp, like red."

"Oh..." Flowey didn't seem to like the idea that he could've killed Papyrus, as killing wasn't a thing he was necessarily very keen on doing. "Wait... Red?"

"yeah, that's what we've been calling sans so we don't get him mixed up with my bro, blue."

"Blu-" he was cut off as the door flew open.

"I HEARD MY NAME! FEAR NOT! THE MAGNIFICENT BLUE HAS ARRIVED!!" Blue yelled.

Frisk stared at him in awe. 

"PAPS! WHO ARE YOUR NEW FRIENDS??" Blue asked.

"'sup bro. this is frisk, and this is.. er.."

"Flowey."

"what he said. flowey, frisk, this is my brother, blue." 

Before anyone else could say anything, Frisk stood up faced Blue. "You're. So. COOL!!!!" they squealed.

"OF COURSE I AM!! BUT I BET YOU'RE COOLER!" Blue said excitedly, his eyes turning into stars. 

Frisk grinned and reached for a high five, and the skeleton happily complied. 

"Papyrus, your brother is adorable." Frisk stated simply after Blue ran into the kitchen to show them the latest "cooking techniques" he'd learned with Alphys.

"i know." Papyrus replied.

" _t-tibia_  honest, i don't know how a-anyone could _not_ know." a new voice said.

Papyrus looked down at Red. "sorry, red. didn't realize you were up."

"s'okay. s-so, what happe-" he was cut off as he felt a small weight hit him in the stomach.

"You almost died! That's what happened!!" Flowey said irritably, wrapping his vines around the skeleton as if hugging him. (dreemurrs have mom instincts. fite me.)

"h-huh?"

"'flower's right."

"o-oh... i'm sorry for worrying you..."

"don't worry about it, kid."

"o-okay. d-did blue say something a-about food? i'm _sternum_ to get h-hungry." Red joked.

"nyeh! nice one. and yeah, blue's making tacos." Papyrus said.

Blue leaned out from the kitchen. "CORRECTION: 'BLUE MADE TACOS'! THINK FAST!" He threw a taco towards the couch, but before it got there, it stopped in midair, surrounded by a red aura. It then floated slowly towards Red, allowing him to grab it and take a bite.

"'s'good!" he said after chewing.

Everyone in the room stared at him.

"you're already strong enough to use your magic?" Papyrus asked. 

"yeah. i'm a fast healer. wanted to see your face when i used my magic. i gotta admit, it was good." Red smirked.

Papyrus picked Red up off his lap and stood up, setting the small skeleton down in the spot where he had been sitting, before exaggeratedly storming out of the room. He slammed the door and the group inside could hear him fall back against the outside wall and start laughing. A giggle erupted from Frisk, and Red snorted. This set everyone in the room laughing  hysterically. every time one of them started calming down, the laughter from another person started them up again. It was a good twenty minutes until everyone had somewhat calmed down.

"That wasn't even very funny." Frisk said to Papyrus, who had at some point come back inside.

"laughter is contagious. the fact that it wasn't funny doesn't matter." Papyrus stated, mocking solemnity. 

"I DID NOT MAKE THESE TACOS SO THEY COULD BE THE CENTER OF A JOKE, AND THERE'S STILL SO MANY LEFT. ARE WE GOING TO EAT OR NOT??" Blue asked.

"yeah, bro. we probably should eat." Papyrus answered.

Everyone sat down. Papyrus and Red took the couch, and Blue sat on the table next to Frisk, who had Flowey in an old pot on their lap,  and the pet rock. Each had a plate of two tacos, with the exception of Flowey, who claimed that he didn't need to eat.

Papyrus, to the Sanses' disgust, drenched his food in honey. Red said that he didn't understand why Papyrus would ruin his tacos like that, and proceeded to bury his own tacos in a mountain of mustard, receiving a skeptical look from Flowey.

"it tastes good." Red shrugged and devoured his first taco.

Frisk watched Red for a moment before picking up a taco and taking a bite. It wasn't too bad, but they could understand now why Papyrus and Red would want to mask the taste. They wouldn't have finished the taco under normal circumstances, but the first bite made them realize how hungry they were.

As they took their next couple bites, they were surprised to find that the taco actually tasted kind of good in its own way. After finishing the first, they took the second and finished it off too.

"So... What now?" Flowey asked.

"i dunno. there's a place i want to show you though." Papyrus said, smirking at the idea that was forming in his skull.

**(Okay this would've been where i stopped the chapter if it weren't for the fact that i wanted to write more. So many ideas... So think of this next part as a sort of next chapter but not. Spoiler: It's all fluff. Get ready**

**let the smolness begin)**

"Where is it?" Frisk asked, not trusting the expression on the skeleton's face.

"it's in waterfall. there's a problem with going there, though." 

"And what's that?" Flowey asked.

"frisk is a human, and i really don't think alphys will be very happy with the fact that there's a human in the underground and no one told her. that's only if we cross paths, though." Papyrus answered.

"Well in that case, we should probably disguise them as a monster." Flowey said.

"i was thinking of something along the lines of that. alphys has never seen a human apart from the animes she watches with undyne, so she might not recognize you as one, frisk. we should probably do something anyways, though."

"HEY, PAPS. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT ONESIE THAT I USED TO WEAR ALL THE TIME??"

"the one with the cat ears and tail?"

"YEAH, THAT ONE! I WAS THINKING WE COULD DRESS FRISK IN IT."

"actually, bro, that's an amazing idea. go get it, wouldja?"

"OKAY! ONE MOMENT!" Blue ran quickly up to his room and soon returned carrying something made of light blue fabric and a scarf made of the same color fabric he was wearing around his neck. "I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE COOL IF WE MATCHED, SO I GOT ONE OF MY SCARVES!!"

Frisk gasped and nodded, grinning from ear to ear. They took the clothes from Blue and followed him to the bathroom so they could change. 

Blue came back and sat down on the couch next to his brother. "WHERE ARE WE GOING, ANYWAYS?" he asked.

"it's a secret." Papyrus responded, smirking.

Frisk finished changing, and walked out of the bathroom and back to the living room. 

"OH MY GOSH! FRISK, YOU'RE ADORABLE!" Blue stared at their outfit, his eyelights turning into stars again.

"welp, we should get going." Papyrus said.

Blue led the group out the door and began to head in the direction of waterfall, but Papyrus stopped him and turned him in the other direction. Leading the rather confused group, Papyrus took a right after walking a short distance. He led them past some houses and a monster throwing ice blocks into the river. When they reached the bank of the river, the group saw a tortoise monster standing on a boat.

"Tra, la, la. Would you like to take a ride on my boat?" he asked.

"yes, please." Papyrus replied.

"Where would you like to go, Tra la?"

"waterfall."

"All aboard then."

The small group boarded the boat and it began to move from the port.

After a short while of nothing but the waves lapping against the boat, the tortoise spoke. "Tra la la. I should've worn a few million more pairs of pants today." 

Frisk snorted. After a while more of silence, the boat pulled into the Waterfall port.

"Tra la la. come again sometime!"

"thank you. we will!"

The group stepped off the boat and walked to where the path forked. Papyrus walked to the front and took a right. They followed him to where a river crossed the path. Papyrus, being the tallest, leaped over quite easily. He then picked up Blue by his soul and carried him over, before doing the same to frisk, who held on tight to Flowey. Lastly, he picked up Red and carried him over. They came to a few more of these and did the same thing. 

When they got out of that area, they found themselves in a room with some brightly lit mushrooms. Papyrus lead them to what looked like a dead end and pressed the mushroom there. it lit up, and showed a path. The skeleton turned around and began to walk back towards the start, now taking a different direction towards a path that the others were sure hadn't been there before. 

"WOAH, A SECRET PATH! HOW DID YOU KNOW THIS WAS HERE??"

"what, did you think i do nothing when i slack off?"

"OH." Blue said, obviously wishing it had been a different reason.

The group reached an entrance to another room that they couldn't quite see into. Papyrus walked straight in without hesitating.

The others followed.

Flowey, having used his vines to climb down from Frisk's shoulder,  went in last.

"What. The. Actual. Hell." Flowey was at a loss for words at the sight before him.

The room was full of a bunch of.... well... _floweys._  And they were nothing like himself. Each one of them was doing something either extremely stupid or extremely useless. _oh no._  one was drawing near...

"HoWDy!! i'M FloWEY!!!11! ANd diS My FriENd, FLoWey!!1!!11!"

Flowey turned around and was confronted by another. 

"HoWDy!! i'M FloWEY!!!11! ANd diS My FriENd, FLoWey!!1!!11!"

Flowey let out a yell and transplanted a short distance away, ending up face-to-face with another.

"HoWDy!! i'M FloWEY!!!11! ANd doN' FoRGEt mY FriEND!!11!"

Another flowey appeared next to this one, but Flowey was too busy trying to get away to hear what the plant said. He transplanted himself over to Frisk and climbed up to their shoulder. Hugging his vines tightly around  them, he buried his face into their hair.

He shakily whispered two words. "Save me."

Frisk snickered and patted one of his vines.

Flowey didn't open his eyes until they were back in the skelebro's house.

"Flowey, we're not even in Waterfall anymore." Frisk said.

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"Flowey."

Flowey slowly picked up his head and opened one eye, before sighing and opening the other.

"No one else can know about this." He growled.

Little did he know, Papyrus had caught the entire thing on camera and was currently rewatching it over and over with Blue and Red. After having a great idea, he got on a social media and pushed _post._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After I finish putting this one here from Wattpad, should I start putting my other one up? It's a bit better...


	7. Flower Fights and Fellow Fallen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still can't title things well.

 

" **Delete it.** " 

Papyrus was tied up uncomfortably by vines, preventing him from moving. "nah."

Flowey squeezed Papyrus tighter with the vines.

" **Delete it.** "

"nah."

" **Delete it.** "

"nah."

" **Delete it.** "

"nah."

"Please?"

"nah."

"Fine. I'll do it myself." Flowey reached his vines into Papyrus's hoodie pocket, but Papyrus was somehow able to move his arm and grab his phone out of it first. While Flowey was being disgusted at whatever the hell was in his pocket, (Frankly, Paps didn't really care.) he tossed the phone to Blue.

Blue caught it and started running, but was presently clotheslined by a vine that had just shot across the hall. 

"ACK! RED, CATCH!!!" he yelled, throwing it downstairs at the other skeleton.

Red clumsily caught it and ran into the kitchen. There was a thud as Paps was dropped and Flowey hurried down the stairs as fast as his vines could carry him. Before the livid flower could reach the kitchen, however, Red threw the phone straight up and it vanished with a red flash. Upstairs, there was another red flash as the phone appeared right above Paps's bed and dropped safely onto his pillow.

Flowey reached the kitchen and stared at Red, confused. "Where is it."

Red shrugged, sporting a shit-eating grin.

Paps walked into his room and grabbed the phone. For a moment, he glanced around his room before smirking, tossing it under his dresser. It hit the wall behind with a dull thud.

Walking out of his room, he looked towards the front door, seeing Frisk walking out the entryway, wearing their green coat and holding the angrily squirming Flowey in a pot. Papyrus headed down the stairs and, as he walked by Red, held out his hand for a high five. The smaller skeleton slapped his hand confidently, and both stood still for a moment before breaking down laughing.

"ahahahah!! d-did you see his f-face?? heheh! he was s-so confused!!" Red gasped, grabbing at Paps, who had fallen to his knees, unable to stand for all the laughing. 

Blue stumbled over, his legs not wanting to work correctly as he was laughing so hard. In a matter of moments, the three of them were a shuddering, giggling mess trying vainly to stop laughing. 

It had been three days since the posting of the video, and it really was quite _humerus_  that it had taken Flowey so long to notice.

\-  -  -

Frisk was having trouble holding Flowey. He was purposefully making himself hard to carry to spite them.

"Someone's salty." Frisk said. 

"Shut up."

"Would you be happy if we got revenge?"

Flowey's face lit up. " **YES.** " 

"Then we'll need a plan..." Frisk thought aloud.

"No dip, Sherlock Holmes." Flowey responded.

"Screw you Watson." Frisk retorted. 

Flowey snorted.

Frisk reached the edge of a frozen lake. It had a sign in the middle.

"I'm going to read that sign." Frisk stated, determined.

After many tries and fails, they still hadn't managed to aim the correct way to land where the sign was. 

"I can do it this time." They said, and failed again. 

This time, though, Flowey grabbed the sign with his vines and pulled them in a circle around the thing, while pulling them towards it.

"There. Are you happy?"

Frisk ignored him and read the sign. "North: Ice. West: Ice. South: Ice. East: Snowdin town.

"Ughgh. This was a waste of time. Let's keep going."

Frisk kept walking away from Snowdin. As they went, They saw less and less people and more and more trees. 

"Hey," Flowey got their attention. "I have an idea! Let's go look at the ruins door!"

"Okay," Frisk said, pulling their hood up to protect their ears from the cold.

When they reached the door, the two stared up at it. _It's taller than I thought..._ Frisk thought to themself.

A low voice using a comforting tone was heard through the door. The human and flower held their breaths to hear the muffled noise better.

"You... just be unhappy.... the ruins... small... get... them. If you.... leave... not stop you. You... not come back... Goodbye, my child." He sounded sad. A few moments later, the door began to creak open. Frisk jumped into a bush to hide, but instead of landing inside the bush as they had intended, they hit something hard before they were even two feet from the ground.

"Ow! Owowowow..." 

A sharp intake of breath was heard from nearby the door. Frisk looked up to see another human. They looked to be about eight or nine years old, which was one or two years younger than Frisk themself. They were much shorter, and were already shivering despite only having been in the cold for a short amount of time. Frisk stood and walked towards them. As they got closer, they noticed the tear tracks on their face. They didn't seem to have wanted to leave the man behind the door.

"Umm... Hi?" Frisk tried. 

The other human stared, but not at Frisk. Frisk looked to see what they were staring at. They noticed with a shock that Flowey was _crying_.

"Ch-Chara? Is it-" _sniff_  "Is it really you?" 

"H-how do you know my name?" The small human asked quietly.

"I-it's me... your best friend..." _sniff_   "no... it's not you, is it?"

"Flowey?  What's wrong?" Frisk asked.

"N-nothing... I-i'm fine.."

Frisk hugged the small plant. Looking towards the other human, they introduced themself.

"Well umm... Hi, I'm Frisk."

"I-i'm Chara.."

This triggered a series of sobs from Flowey. Frisk picked him up from the pot and let him wrap himself around their shoulder again. He cuddled himself into their warmth.

Frisk stood up and walked over to Chara, holding out their hand. "So, you coming or not?" They asked.

Chara took it, and the two walked towards the skelebrother's house. By the time they reached Papyrus's sentry station, Chara was shivering intensely. Frisk took off their jacket and gave it to the younger child, who thanked them and put it on.

When Frisk looked up, they nearly jumped out of their skin. Papyrus had at some point appeared and was standing over them. 

"Ack! Oh. Hi, Paps."

"nyeh heh heh. i gotcha."

"Shut up." They said, smiling.

"i see you captured a human." he joked.

"Yeah," They said, "Hey, you can teleport, right? Can you take us home?"

"sure." Papyrus said, grabbing Frisk's hand.

Before they knew it, they were in Pap's house, right next to the couch, were Red was passed out. 

"Thanks!" They said, after recovering from the slight dizzyness.

"Woah, you can teleport!??" Chara asked, staring at Papyrus.

"yeah."

"That's so cool!!"

"heh." Papyrus said, before flopping down on the couch next to Red.

"If you think that's cool, you wanna see something cooler?" They asked.

"Yes!!"

Frisk led Chara up to Sans's room. After opening the door, they walked towards Sans, who seemed to be on social media on his computer.

"HUH? OH, HELLO, FRISK!! WAIT... IS... IS THAT ANOTHER HUMAN???"

"Yeah. This is Chara."

"OH. HELLO, CHARA!!! I AM THE AMAZING BLUE!!!"

"I though you were the _magnificent_ Blue." Frisk said.

"WELL IT DIDN'T SOUND AS GOOD AS 'MAGNIFICENT SANS' SO I'M TRYING OUT NEW THINGS TO SEE WHAT SOUNDS GOOD."

"Oh."

"Blue," Chara said. "You're so cool." 


	8. Sweet Dreams and Nice Creams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is referencing something

 

 _I'm so glad this couch has a pullout bed in it._ Papyrus thought as he pulled the double bed out from the couch. _Seriously, it's only been four days and there's three extra people living here now._ He tucked the sheet in at the foot of the mattress and draped an old quilt over it. _At least it's quiet now._

Blue, Red, Flowey, Frisk, and Chara had gone outside to hang around and have the two humans try Blue's puzzles. After all, he _was_  a sentry and he "HAD TO AT LEAST _TRY_ TO CAPTURE THEM." as Blue put it. They had invited Paps, but he had declined, saying that he needed to get the house ready to have more people living in it. They had decided that Frisk and Chara would take the couch bed, and Blue would stay in his room. Red and Pap would stay in Papyrus's room, since even though Red had gotten pretty used to his new life, he still couldn't sleep if Papyrus wasn't nearby.

Papyrus walked over to the table in the corner. Grabbing his joke/quantum physics book off it, he dragged it over to the side of the bed so Flowey would have a place near Frisk. After that, he began to pick up everything that had ended up strewn around on the ground in the time that everyone had been hanging out in the living room. He kept doing this until a particular item caught his attention.

_What do I do with the sock?_

_"PICK IT UP!!!" His inner Blueberry screeched._

"nah." he said to himself.

He read the latest update to his bro's side of the conversation: ' _FORGET IT!!'_ , and pulled a pen and sticky note out of his pocket. Clicking the pen, he wrote: ' _nah'._

Sticking it to the ever-growing group of notes on the sock, he stood back up and looked around the room, content with his actions.

"RAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!" A familiar voice yelled.

"AAH!!! RED WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!" Papyrus yelled, his eyelight fading from the flaming orange that had filled it as he realized who it was.

"I DIDN'T KNOW HE COULD GET THAT LOUD!!" Blue remarked from the doorway.

As he said this, Red was on the ground laughing his ass off. "y-your face hahah! y-you-pffff! hehehe!"

Papyrus was going to get revenge. "i'll give you something to laugh about." He said menacingly.

He picked Red up and turned him onto his back before beginning a relentless tickle attack.

"oh! no! hahah! st-stop!! heh! I-I can't breathe!! hahah! don't! hahah! stop!"

"don't stop? okay." Papyrus continued tickling the other skeleton, who was now gasping for breath.

"s-stop!! hahah! no!"

"what's the magic word?"

"p-hahah! please!"

"okay." Papyrus pulled back, but unfortunately failed to noticed the wicked grin on Red's face. 

Jumping up, he smashed into Papyrus and landed on top of him. Refusing to move off of him, he began to tickle him back.

"joke's on you, red. i'm not ticklish."

"d-dang it!" Red said.

"welp," Papyrus said, sitting up and letting Red tumble off him, "i cleaned up some stuff while you guys were gone."

"AND I SEE YOU STILL DIDN'T PICK. UP. YOUR. SOCK!!!!!!" Blue interrupted him. 

"yeah, what about it?"

"HMPH." 

"anyways." Papyrus said, smirking, "what are we going to do now?"

"DINNER!!!!! I'LL MAKE TACOS!!!" Blue exclaimed.

"bro, we've been eating tacos for every meal for a week. i know red and the kids haven't been here that long, but four days is still a long time to only eat one food. i was thinking we could go to muffet's."

"OH! OKAY. I HAVEN'T BEEN THERE IN AWHILE, SO I GUESS I'LL GO."  
  


"well?" papyrus inquired, looking at the others. "what do you think?"

"i-i'll go." Red answered

"Whatever. It's not like I actually have to eat." Flowey muttered.

"I haven't been there yet, so I'll go." Frisk agreed.

"S'fine with me!" Chara chimed in.

"well then that's settled."

As the group walked towards Muffet's, Blue and Chara excitedly told Papyrus how the puzzles went, with Chara expressing how much they enjoyed it, and Blue complimenting their "AMAZING PUZZLE SKILLS!!"

When they reached the restaurant, Papyrus led them to the counter. They all ordered what they wanted, took it, and sat down.  

"w-what's that?" Red pointed at the coffee Papyrus had gotten.

"coffee."

"can i have some?"

Papyrus remembered what had happened when Blue had had coffee. *war flashbacks.* (sorry, had to.) Red was a Sans just like Blue, and he didn't trust that Red's reaction would be different.

"no."

"oh... s-sorry."

"'s'okay. i just don't want you to have the same reaction as blue did."

"OH COME ON!! IT WASN'T THAT BAD!!" Blue protested. 

"sans," Papyrus used his real name, "you nearly destroyed the town."

"What happened?" Frisk questioned.

"well..."

-flashback-

_"HI, PAPS!!!" Blue said energetically._

_"hey, sans. what's that you got there?" Paps inquired._

_"MUFFET GAVE IT TO ME!! SHE SAID SHE WANTED TO SEE HOW YOU'D REACT." Blue said._

_"okay... what is it?"_

_"SHE SAID IT'S CALLED COFFEE." He took a sip of it._

_"wait, what!?"_

_Blue's eyes turned into stars._

_"ohhh nooo." Papyrus facepalmed and prepared for the worst._

_"MWEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!!!!!"_

_-flashback end-_

"i'm done. that was bad enough that one time. i'd rather not relive it again by telling you the rest."

"Was it really that bad?" Chara questioned.

"yes." Papyrus stated without hesitation.

Later, when they had gotten home and everyone was asleep, Chara had a dream.

Nothing was very clear, but one message stood out from the jumbled mess. _Stay determined._

They couldn't just stay there forever. They were going to help their friends get out. 

They woke up early that morning, and woke Frisk as well. 

"Do you want to help them out of here?"

"Uhhhh... Wha??what'd you say?" Frisk was still half asleep.

"Do you wanna help our friends out of here?"

"...Yeah, of course I do!"

"C'mon, then!"

They both pulled on their jackets, (Chara had gotten one at a store) and quietly slipped out of the house.

"Okay, we need to get to Waterfall, so let's hurry before they notice we're gone."

The two children hurried out of Snowdin and into the damp coolness of Waterfall. Hurrying by a sentry station and  into a hallway, they were surprised to be met with a yellow dinosaur monster with a scar on one eye and wearing armor.

"Oh! Who are y-?" She cut herself off. "Are you humans?"

"Ye-" Chara was interrupted by Frisk.

"NO." They said, a little to abruptly.

Grabbing Chara's arm, they hurried past the confused monster.

\- - -

Papyrus and Red awoke to his Blue shouting at them.

"jus' five more minutes, bro..." Papyrus mumbled tiredly.

"PAPYRUS! ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING??!! _FRISK AND CHARA AREN'T HERE!!_ "

"what!?" Papyrus and Red exclaimed in unison.

"THEY'RE NOT HERE. FLOWEY'S REALLY FREAKING OUT."

The two followed Blue downstairs.

"well we should probably go find them!" Papyrus said.

"I'LL CHECK SNOWDIN WITH FLOWEY, AND YOU AND RED CHECK WATERFALL. THEY CAN'T HAVE GOTTEN MUCH FURTHER THAN THAT." Blue suggested.

"yeah, okay." Papyrus pulled on his hoodie and waited at the door for Red to get his on.

They walked out the door, followed by Blue holding the frantic Flowey in a pot.

\- - -

Chara and Frisk ran as quickly as they could, with the very suspicious Alphys on their heels. She was much slower than them, however, and that gave them a chance to get a lead on her. They hurried past waterfalls and blue flowers that they would've thought were cool to look at if if weren't for the fact that they were so scared. After a long time of running (both of them were thankful for gym class at this point), they came to a raised wooden platform. They didn't hesitate and kept running. Now, however, there were axes flying by them. They were having a hard time dodging them. They realized with shock that they  were running out of platform. Reaching the end, they looked past the edge. All they saw was a dark chasm.

Alphys, who was blocking the way off, summoned an ax (how do you even spell that? my computer says 'axe' is wrong) and swung into wooden surface in front of her, causing the part were Frisk and Chara were standing to fall. Grabbing at each other in the blackness, they were relieved when they found each other's hands.

\- - - 

Papyrus and Red walked through Waterfall, calling for Frisk and Chara.

"we could just teleport to happstablook's house and wait." Papyrus suggested. "they're bound to end up there."

"w-who?"

"happstablook. he's a friend of mine. anyways, i haven't visited him in a while."

"o-ok i guess... b-but what if they're in t-trouble?"

"if they're not there after ten minutes, we can just start searching again."

"w-well.. i-i guess that would work..."

Papyrus held out his hand. 

"shall we?"

Red nodded and took it.

Everything disappeared, and when it came back, they were both surprised to see a small, white, furry creature. It seemed just as surprised to see them, but quickly recovered.

"Howdy! I'm Tem! But you know me, don't you, smiling smokestack?"

"ha-ha," Papyrus said, sarcastically. "get outta here, temmie." He knew they were a lot more dangerous than they looked.

"Whaaat? Really? JUST when I get a new toy to play with?" they eyed Red. "Golly, you really are an idiot." Two paws shot out of the ground and grabbed Papyrus, dragging him down.

" **Red. Run.** " he managed.

Red attempted to get to Papyrus, but was stopped by another paw. Hed flinched as he was pulled into a FIGHT. Flowey CHECKed him

"Awww... only 1 hp? that's too bad... well... at least I can make _someone_  suffer..." a third paw shot from the ground and held Papyrus's eyesockets open, forcing him to look at Red.

Summoning a circle of bullets, Temmie smiled wickedly at Red.

The circle began closing in and time seemed to slow down.

"red!"

Red curled in on himself and waited for the hit that would end his life. Papyrus saw the bullets begin to move quicker. With every ounce of determination he had, he wrenched himself free of the paws, sent a couple bone attacks towards Temmie, and enveloped Red with his own body, blocking the bullets.

Red looked up to see that Temmie was gone. _Huh? what happened?_ he looked around. _Where's Papyrus?_  he sat up and was surpised when something slid off him. Turning to see what it is, he stared at it curiously.

It was Papyrus's jacket.

And it was covered in dust.

" **no.** "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...oh snap.


	9. Finding Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still bad at titles!

Chara woke up on a bed of golden flowers similar to the one they had landed on at the start of their journey. Sitting up, they scanned their surroundings for any sign of Frisk. They didn't seem to be nearby... 

"Frisk?" Chara asked quietly.

They attempted to stand up, but their legs weren't quite ready to support their weight. 

"Oof!" they fell back down.

"Chara?" a faint voice in the distance called.

"Frisk! Is that you?" Chara picked themself up and began to walk in the direction of the voice. 

They couldn't see well in the dark, so they slowly progressed with their arms in front of them. Their outstretched hands hit something, so they began to investigate.

"Chara would you please get your hands off my face?" it said.

"Oh!" Chara let their arms drop. "Sorry..."

"It's fine. Let's keep moving." Frisk grabbed their friend's hand so they wouldn't get separated, and the two made their way past the piles of trash.

They reached a platform with some sort of yellow star floating above it. Chara climbed up onto the wooden plank and helped Frisk up after them. 

"What is that?" Frisk asked.

"I don't know... there were some in the ruins, too. I don't think anyone else can see them, though. I asked Asgore about it, but he just looked at me weird."

Chara out their hands over the star. *You are filled with determination. File saved. A voice said quietly. They smiled and stepped back, looking at Frisk. 

"You do it." 

Frisk shrugged. "Okay," They said.

Holding their hands over the star, they felt a rush of... something.

*New file: Save at the same time. A glitchy message popped into their head.

"Let's try at the same time." Frisk said.

They both reached out one hand and the star glowed brightly.

*Having a companion on your adventure fills you with determination. Files saved.

The two children looked at each other and smiled.

"Let's go." Frisk said, grabbing Chara's hand again.

They kept walking in a content silence. They were about to pass a practice dummy when Chara held back.

"Stop."

Frisk looked back at them. "Huh?"

"There was a dummy like that one in the ruins, and it attacked me. Asgore stopped it then, but there's no one here now and I don't know if we're good in a fight..."

"Oh... Maybe we could sneak past it?" 

"I dunno... maybe."

"Well we should at least try..."

The two began to sneak (as well as they could in the knee-deep water) past the dummy, trying not to bother it.

Nothing happened. When they looked back at it, however, it seemed to dip its head down, as if to acknowledge them.

"Huh..." Chara thought aloud.

The two took a few more steps until Frisk stopped them. "Shh! I think I heard something!"

The two stood still and held their breaths, listening intently. There were, indeed, muffled voices coming from ahead.

"Wonder what that is..." Frisk commented.

"I dunno... let's go see."

As they got closer, they heard the voices get a bit louder.

Then, there was a quiet, yet forceful voice. "No."

They came out into a room and saw...

"Red?" Frisk asked worriedly.

The small skeleton looked up at them before burying his face in something orange and weeping. He shuddered violently and his bones rattled from his heaving sobs.

"Red, what's wrong?" Chara asked.

The sobs only grew louder, and Red's grip on what he was holding tighter. His breath was coming in short gasps, his cries drowning out chances to breathe.

The children stared at each other, confused, before realisation set in...

\- - -

"Ughghgh where could they be??" Flowey asked urgently and slightly frustratedly.

"I DON'T KNOW." Blue responded for what felt like the millionth time.

"If I were a human, where would I be...?"

"WELL I MEAN I'D PROBABLY BE ON THE SURFACE."

"Oh wow, Blue. Reeeaaalll helpful."

"WELL I'M JUST SAYING, IF I WERE A HUMAN AND I FELL UNDERGROUND, I WOULD WANT TO GET HOME. THAT'S THE ONLY REASON I WOULD LEAVE LIKE THEY DID."

"Well, I guess that makes sense... maybe we should go help Red and Papyrus."

"WE SHOULD AT LEAST CHECK THE REST OF THE FOREST JUST IN CASE, THOUGH! WE'VE ALREADY GOTTEN THIS FAR."

"Sounds good to me."

They kept going until Blue stopped in his tracks, an unreadable expression in his face.

"Uhhh... Blue?"

"Something's wrong." He stated flatly, without the usual cheeriness.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know... I felt something odd just then... Like... I lost something important..." 

"Maybe we should turn around now and go check?"

"Yeah... after all, if something's wrong... THE MAGNIFICENT BLUE.... will... help... YEAH..." he struggled to bring his happy mood back.

"Maybe we should make sure you're okay first." Flower suggested.

"No... NO, I'M FINE, LET'S GO!!" Blue turned and began to quickly make his way towards Snowdin.

After ten minutes, they had reached the edge of town, where Waterfall began.

Blue began to pick up speed as they went, and it was obvious that something was bothering him. Soon, he was sprinting full-on. Flowey began to feel a bit sick as his surroundings faded into a blur. Then it stopped.

"-OOF!" Sans had run into someone.

"Huh!? Oh, hey, Sans!"

"Wha- OH! ALPHYS!!"

"What you in such a hurry fo-"

Blue cut her off. "HAVE YOU SEEN MY BROTHER?"

"No, why?" 

"He wants to find his brother to help him look for Frisk and Chara. They weren't in Snowdin." Flowey said before Blue could respond.

"I don't know who Frisk and Chara are. Are they friends of yours?"

"YEAH."

"Huh. Well, while I've got you here, I guess I should warn you that there's two humans running around. I chased 'em a bit, but I made a stupid mistake and lost them."

"TWO HUMANS?! WHERE DID YOU SEE THEM LAST?"

"At the end of this dock, actually. I'll take you there. C'mon, punks!" She bounded off on the platform. Sans glanced at Flowey before shrugging and following the dinosaur monster.

She reached the end of the platform, and Blue came up next to her.

"I THOUGHT THIS WAS LONGER."

"It was, but I kinda sorta cut it off. It fell down there." She pointed down the chasm. "Both of the humans were on it."

Blue caught his breath. "OH..."

"Well, I gotta go have a da- I mean hang out with Undyne. I'll see you around, ya nerds!"

"BYE..." Blue couldn't take his eyes off the drop. "FLOWEY, WE GOTTA GET DOWN THERE AND MAKE SURE THEY'RE OKAY."

"I'm workin' on it." Flowey summoned a thick vine. "Take this and tie it around yourself." He transplanted himself out of the pot. "Take the pot with you."

Blue did as he said, and when Flowey told him to, he sat down on the edge of the platform and slid off it, holding the vine for dear life. Flowey began to lower him down. After what felt like hours, Blue's feet hit water. He shivered. 

He looked up, "I'M ALL THE WAY DOWN NOW!"

There was an answering call from above, before Flowey popped out of a pile of trash. Looking down disgustedly at what he had come up in, he quickly used his roots to pull himself back into the pot.

"Let's go." He said.

Blue moved through the dump as quickly as possible, trying not to slip.

A dummy sat by a pile of trash. 

"HELLO!" Blue said to it.

"Hi," it replied. 

It didn't really want visitors right now, but a nice enough person to smile at it and greet it couldn't just be turned away. 

"DID YOU BY CHANCE SEE TWO HUMANS COME THROUGH HERE?"

"Yes, I did. They went through that hallway." It nodded towards the hallway to its right.

"OH! THANK YOU!" Blue grinned at it. "HAVE A GOOD DAY!" He said before moving on.

If the dummy could've smiled, it would have.

"You too!"

Blue walked on until he reached the hallway. 

"Wait. I hear someone." Flowey stopped him.

Blue held his breath. "IS THAT SOMEONE... CRYING?"

Blue began to walk quicker than before, and finally reached the next room. There was not someone, but three someones crying.  

Red was in the middle, right by a small stretch of water.  He was holding something, but Blue couldn't see it. Frisk and Chara were in the way. They were both hugging him and it seemed that he had melted into their embrace. All three were sobbing.

Blue approached them. As he got nearer, he was able to see that Red was holding an orange sweatshirt. It looked like the one Papyrus wore today... where was he? Blue took a few more steps before he realized that the sweatshirt was... dusty? Now that he noticed it, he saw that Red, too, was dusty.

"U-uhmm..."

Frisk turned and looked at him, before bursting into tears.

Blue stepped closer and knelt next to Red. Flowey pulled himself out of the pot and wrapped himself around the shaking skeleton.

"Red?"

Red stared at him with empty eyesockets. He didn't need to speak for Blue to know what happened.

"No... Brother..." Blue slowly relaxed and hugged himself, large tears forming in his eyesockets.

Red pulled Blue towards himself, and Frisk and Chara adjusted themselves to make room for him. Flowey used vines to join in the group hug, while he himself buried his face in Red's hood. They were a tangled mess of tears, dust, and souls crying out for another's comfort.

The four of them held onto each other, crying in a heap on the floor.


	10. Loading and Saving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How does title
> 
>  
> 
> ...help

 

Chara wished they could help in some way. They felt so useless just sitting there crying. They hadn't known Papyrus very well, but they still missed him. They looked at Blue. His face was scrunched up and tear-streaked. He was crying silently, shaking as he hugged Red close, desperate for comfort. Red had one arm around him and was holding him tightly, while his other arm was halfway around Frisk. Frisk was hugging Chara, and the latter had their arm around Blue. Flowey was holding the small group together with his vines, burying his face into Red's hoodie.

After a very long time, Red pulled out of the hug. He stood up and held out his hand for Blue to grab. Blue wiped the tears off his face with his hand before taking hold of Red's hand. They both disappeared. A moment later, Red was back, and he held out both hands for the humans. They both took his hands, and all three disappeared, leaving an empty room. They found themselves back at the skeleton household. Once they got there, Red wordlessly left, heading to Papyrus's room. Blue sat on the couch and stared straight forward. Chara and Frisk looked at each other for a moment, before Frisk left to console Blue. Chara followed soon after, and sat on the other side of the now weeping skeleton. He eventually fell asleep, a last few tears falling from his eye sockets as he drifted off. Chara and Frisk fell asleep too, and upstairs Red fell asleep on a tearstained pillow. The entire house, save for Flowey, was asleep.

Chara awoke to the sound of the television. Blue was staring blankly at the screen, a remote held loosely in one hand.

"Blue, are you okay?" They questioned.

"Pap and I used to watch this show..." he said, apparently not having heard them.

Chara looked at the screen to see a blue robot doing some sort of... musical news report? Looking back at Blue, they saw that his eye sockets were dark and vacant.

He was definitely **not** okay.

They had only known him for a day, but they could tell that this was not good. It wasn't as if they didn't know the reason. They didn't want to see their friends sad. They didn't want Papyrus to be gone. They wanted him back. **They needed him back. HE HAD TO COME BACK.**

A red glow seemed to cover everything. Chara glanced around and saw Frisk right next to them, and reached out to them. They were just able to grab hold of the other human when there was a bright flash-

There was a splash, and then the sound of running water. Chara opened their eyes to see the star on the platform. They glanced over to Frisk, who was right next to them, rubbing their head and looking around, confused.

"Wha... how did we get here?" Frisk mumbled, having just noticed Chara.

"I don't know... let's get going." They got up and began wading through the dump.

Frisk stood and began to follow them. When they reached the entrance to the hallway, they were surprised to hear some people talking. Chara picked up their pace and hurried in the direction of the noise. They came out of the hall just in time to see Papyrus attacking something and throwing himself over Red. He was hit by some sort of bullets that had been intended for the other and turned to dust.

Then, for the second time, they heard Red's reaction. " **no**."

"Did... did we just go back in time?" Frisk said next to them.

"Uhhh... maybe?"

"Can we do it again?"

"Maybe...?"

Frisk ran back into the dump, followed by Chara. They stopped and turned to Chara.

"If we can do that again, we can save Papyrus." Frisk stated.

Chara's eyes widened. "That might work! But I don't know if we can do it again..."

"We'll figure it out." Frisk said, a strange look on their face. They were determined to save their friend. They would go back somehow.

The world glowed red again, and both children found themselves by the save point once more.

Frisk, after figuring out what had happened, picked themself up and quickly grabbed Chara's hand.

"C'mon." They began running through the dump, stepping on the piles of trash so the water wouldn't slow them down.

They reached the room to see Papyrus held down and... a _something_ aiming attacks at Red. Papyrus succeeded in freeing himself and was summoning attacks to send at the creature.

"Papyrus!" Frisk yelled.

Papyrus turned to look at them, and the bullets that were heading towards Red got closer, ever closer... until one hit.

Red whimpered at the pain, but it was cut off as he turned to dust.

Chara shook their head, tears beginning to form in their eyes. "We'll have to keep trying."

Before they knew it, they were back at the save point again.

And again.

And again...

"Frisk, we need to take a break." Chara said after countless tries.

"Okay." Frisk said quietly.

They sat on the platform together, leaning on each other and eventually falling asleep.

-

Flowey looked up and once again saw the same scene he felt he'd seen at least twelve times now. _Okay, so I guess they figured out_ _ho_ _w to load..._ _They're_ _probably_ _trying_ _to get past someone._ _Hope it works this time. This is giving me a headache._

 _I don't feel like we've gotten this far yet... I don't remember, but I have a feeling..._ He thought as he lowered Blue into the chasm. He tramsplanted himself down and climbed back into the pot. They both continued. After a bit, Blue stopped walking for seemingly no reason. Flowey looked up and was confused to see Frisk and Chara sitting on a platform, staring at him and Blue.

"HI, HUMANS!!" Blue said.

"...Hey, Blue." Chara greeted half-heartedly.

"Hey, Flowey, can I talk to you?" Frisk asked.

"Uhh sure, I guess." Flowey responded.

Frisk walked over towards a pile of trash and gestured for him to follow. He transplanted himself to them.

"So what's up?" Flowey asked.

"We're trying to save Papyrus, and it isn't working." Frisk replied.

"That would explain why you kept loading files. What happened to him?"

"You don't remember?" Frisk asked, confused.

"Nope. I don't think anyone does except whoever loaded. I knew there was something going on, but I didn't remember. So, what happened?" Flowey questioned.

"Papyrus died... he was protecting Red from... er... something. I don't know what it was." Frisk related.

"Oh..."

"We can't get there fast enough to save him... Can you help?"

"I might be able to. If I know you're going to load there's a chance I might remember." Flowey said.

"Well any chance is better than nothing. We're out of ideas."

"Well, I guess I'll try then. Once you load, I'll head to where Papyrus and Red are... what room were they in?" He inquired.

"It's the one right after this one, with the water in the middle." Frisk answered.

"Okay. I'll do what I can.  We should probably tell Chara the plan." Flowey said.

"I already heard it." Chara said from behind them. "Blue went ahead, so if we're gonna load, we should probably do it before he gets to Red. I don't think he should have to find out his brother is dead again, even if he'll forget."

"Oh, okay."  
-  
Flowey looked up and once again saw the same scene he'd seen at least thirteen times now.

_Looks like they figured out how to load. Wait... no, there's something I was supposed to- Oh right! Papyrus!_

"Hey, Blue." Flowey said.

"WHAT IS IT, FLOWEY?" Blue asked.

"I gotta do something really quick. Are you okay by yourself?"

"OF COURSE!"

"Okay, thanks. I'll be back in a jiffy."

"OKAY."

Flowey transplanted himself to the room. It was empty save for a... temmie... sitting in the middle.

 _Maybe that's what.... well, it's worth a shot._ He thought.

He put on a stupid face and transplanted himself right next to the temmie.

"H0i!!1!1" he yelled in his most annoying voice possible.

The temmie started and whirled around. "Wha-?" He saw Flowey. "Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. No. Nuh-uh. I am not getting near one of you again." He teleported out of the room.

After a moment, Flowey heard a noise and looked in its direction to see Red and Paps appearing. They had their backs to him, so he took the chance and quickly transplanted himself back to where he had left Blue.

"I'm back."

"OH! THAT DIDN'T TAKE YOU LONG AT ALL!" Blue held out the pot for Flowey to get back in.

"Well, we should probably keep looking." He changed the subject.

"OKAY!"

Blue continued walking until he was stopped by a buzzing noise. He pulled a phone out of his pocket and looked at it for a moment.

"PAPY FOUND THE HUMANS!" He announced. "HE SAYS TO GO HOME AND MEET HIM THERE."

Flowey let out a sigh of relief. It had worked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a dumb chapter ending! Wooo!


	11. A Passing Conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... this title is actually okay.
> 
> Why do I always talk about the titles?

 

Chara and Frisk were sitting on the couch next to Paps and Red when Blue burst through the doorway. 

"OH MY GOSH!!!! CHARA!!! FRISK!!! WE WERE SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU!!!!" He ran over to both of them, and, with surprising strength for someone so small, he picked them both up off the couch and hugged them tightly. Flowey, who Blue had set on the table, smirked at Frisk, whose face was beginning to change color at how tightly Blue was holding them.

Papyrus decided to butt in. "uhhh, bro... i think humans need to breathe to live, and you're not exactly letting them..." 

Blue dropped them back on the couch. "OH NO!!!! I'M SO SORRY!!! DID I HURT YOU!??"

Frisk was able to gasp out a quiet "We're fine." as they attempted to get enough air back to function properly. 

Both humans ended up feeling light-headed, and fell back against each other.

Flowey snickered. "Well that happened." 

Red snorted. "a-are you two, heh, gonna be okay?"

Chara glared at him, but couldn't hold the face long. They cracked a smile.

"hah. see? i wasn't the only one who found it _humerus._ "

Papyrus smiled. "you might not wanna make any puns right now." he said. "they're _sternum_ to get on blue's nerves." 

"PAPYRUS!!! THAT WAS A STRETCH AND YOU KNOW IT." Blue protested.

"what are you talking about, bro? bones don't stretch as far as i know." red said. "speaking of stretching, blue, i think you need to be more _flexible_ when it comes to our puns."

Blue had stopped listening at the word "bro". His face was literally glowing, with all the light coming from his wide eye sockets. He was grinning widely. 

"YOU CALLED ME BROTHER!!!!" he squealed. 

Grabbing Red's hands, he spun around the room, singing loudly "YOU CALLED ME BROTHER, YOU CALLED ME BROTHER!!!"

He seemed to be oblivious to anything else. Red looked pleadingly at Paps every chance he got, but the taller skeleton just shrugged and smirked.

"paps help!!!" he pleaded.

The lanky skeleton didn't respond. 

"p-please?" Red tried.

Papyrus got up and stuck his arm into the blur of movement and pulled Blue out, leaving a dazed Red to spin for a moment on one foot before collapsing in a dizzy heap.

Paps held the still ecstatic Blue by one arm and raised one nonexistent eyebrow. "i dunno if spinning him around like that is  good idea, bro."

Blue looked back at Red and saw him attempt to stand up. Before he could fall, however, he was caught by Papyrus. Blue turned around and only saw the couch with the two humans on it. 

Looking back at Paps, he reprimanded him. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT TELEPORTING IN THE HOUSE??"

Red, still dizzy and confused, spoke up. "well i dunno what you're talkin' about, you seemed fine with it when I teleported pap's phone into his room while we were playin' keep-away."

Across the room, Flowey looked up suddenly. "What." 

Papyrus looked towards the humans on the couch. They were asleep. Looking at Blue, he pointed at them. Blue glanced over before nodding back at Papyrus. The taller picked up Red and walked to the door. Opening it, he let Blue out before exiting himself.

Red didn't seem to want to be carried. "paps, i'm not dizzy anymore. can i please walk?"

Papyrus looked down at him "can you?" 

He put Red down and watched amusedly as he lost his balance. Before the smaller skeleton could fall, however, he was steadied by Papyrus.

"you good?"  He inquired.

Red nodded. Blue was watching them with a weird expression on his face. Papyrus raised a nonexistent eyebrow at him. The blue skeleton smiled weirdly and had trace amounts of blush on his face.

"uhh... bro?"

"you like each other," he said.

Red's face began to glow a bright red, and he flipped his hood up. Papyrus smirked and squatted down to Red's level. Grabbing the hood, he pulled it back off Red and clanked his teeth gently against the top of his skull.

"p-papyrus, did you just-"

"yeah."

Blue grinned at both of them. "Otp." he whispered. 

Now that he thought of it, he wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he'd heard Undyne say it a couple times and he was pretty sure it worked with the situation. 

"WELL, I'M GOING TO GO ON PATROL NOW. YOU TWO HAVE FUN ON YOUR DATE!!!" He ran off, "MWEH HEH HEH!"ing all the way.

"wait... we're on a date?" Red asked.

"i guess?" Papyrus answered, watching Blue's form move into the distance. "i know where we can go." 

"and where's that?"

Papyrus didn't respond, only held out his hand for Red to take. The smaller skeleton took it. The world disappeared in a rush of orange before re-appearing. The two of them were now in waterfall. Red followed Papyrus past echo flowers and glowing mushrooms. 

"...have you ever made a wish to an echo flower?" Papyrus asked.

"n-no... why would i do that?" Red replied, confused.

"i dunno. some people here do. i guess it's our equivalent of what humans call 'wishing on a star'." The other explained.

"huh."

"so? don't you have any wishes to make?"

"... hmmm, just one, but... i-it's kind of stupid." Red answered.

"don't say that! come on, i promise i won't laugh." 

"... hmmm... i-if i say my wish... y-you promise you won't laugh at me?" 

"of course i won't laugh!" Papyrus urged. 

"s-someday, i'd like to climb this m-mountain we're all buried under. standing under the s-sky, looking at the world all around... th-that's my wish." Red divulged.

"heheh..."

"... hey, y-you said you wouldn't l-laugh at it!" Red accused.

"sorry, it's just funny... that's my wish, too." Papyrus admitted.

They walked in silence for a while, before they came to a ledge. Papyrus sat down, and beckoned Red to join him. The smaller skeleton did, and they both looked up at the 'stars.' Red's eyes began to droop and he leaned on Papyrus, who put an arm around him. Red eventually fell asleep, and Papyrus looked down at him. _he's so cute when he's sleeping,_  he thought.

**\--le dream--**

_Red followed Papyrus towards Waterfall._ Why am I here again? _He thought. The Taller of the two suggested that they teleport. They did, and ended up in a room with some kind of white furred mammal._ I don't remember this... _The thing was speaking, threatening Papyrus. Then it attacked him and held him down. He was told to run, but couldn't get away. A circle of attacks surrounded him, and he flinched, waiting for impact that never came. Looking around, he felt something on top of him slide off his back._

_"_ _**No** _ _."_ _He was devoid of feeling and in shock at what had just happened._

_Eventually, his friends showed up, comforted him. He took them back to the house and went to Papyrus's room. He fell asleep._

**_-end of le dream-_ **

"hey,red." he was being shaken. "red, wake up."

"...huh?" he opened his eyes and looked around.

"you were crying."

"i had a dream, is all."

"what happened?"

"..."

"red."

"you..."

"red, i've had enough nightmares to be able to handle whatever your dream was."

"y-you died... when we teleported to that room to wait for the kids... th-there was this little cat thing... i-it tried to kill me and you jumped in the way..." 

Papyrus looked at him for a moment before remembering. "oh."

He wrapped his arms around Red and hugged him. "don't worry. it was just a dream."

They sat there in silence for a while before Papyrus picked Red, who had fallen asleep again, up and teleported to his room. He tucked him into the bed before teleporting downstairs and flopping down on the couch next to the humans, who were watching TV.

"hey, random question." he said.

"Huh?" Chara looked at him.

"you wouldn't happen to know anything about time travel, would you?"


	12. "I love you..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried...?

 

Both humans stiffened. There was a long silence before Chara slowly nodded.

"...you remember?" They inquired.

"only bits and pieces." Papyrus answered. "red remembers too..."

Chara relaxed and looked down. "We didn't know what to do. We found out how to load and kept trying after the first time you died, and it never worked..."

"huh. how did you do it, then? i remember it was temmie that did it."

"We got Flowey to help." Frisk said. "How did you remember? He said he didn't think anyone did."

"i didn't at first. it was red who remembered first. he had a nightmare about it. it wasn't a very long one, but he was crying when he woke up. i got him to tell me, and i guess that's what sparked the memory."

"Oh."

"anyways, i was wondering if you want to go to muffet's?"

Both human's stomachs growled simultaneously.

"heh. sorta thought you'd be hungry. we'll pick up something for red while we're there. he's sleepin' like a rock upstairs. let's go."

"Not without me, I hope!" Flowey remarked from his spot on the table.

"Of course not." Frisk picked him up and waited by the door for the others.

The group exited the house and began the short walk to muffet's cafe. They were just passing the 'librarby' when someone rushed up to them.

"HI!!!!" he greeted.

"'sup, bro. we were just headin' to muffet's. wanna join us?" Paps asked.

"SURE!!!!" Blue looked around. "...WHERE'S RED?"

"he's at the house sleepin'." 

"OH!! HOW DID YOUR DATE GO??"

Frisk's head shot up at the word 'date'. "You went on a date!!??"

 "yeah. it was pretty good. went to waterfall and looked at the 'stars'. red was pretty tuckered out, though."

"OHHHH THE SHIP HAS SAIIILLLEEEED!!!!!" Blue yelled. 

Papyrus snorted. "where did you even learn that?"

"UNDYNE AND ALPHYS."

"oh." he said, unsurprised.

Frisk's stomach growled loudly.

"welp, we better get goin'."

"YEAH!! LET'S GO!!"

The group proceeded towards the small restaurant, and upon reaching it, entered. The regulars all greeted Papyrus, and a few said "hi" to Blue as well, though they called him Sans. Papyrus led them to a booth near his normal spot at the bar, and watched Muffet come rolling towards them on her roller skates.

"How can I help you, dearies?" The spider monster asked, looking at Papyrus.

"i'll have the usual." Papyrus said.

Muffet nodded and looked at Blue.

"OH! OH! CAN I GET A CINNAMON MUFFIN!?!"

She smiled at him and looked to Frisk. 

"Do you have croissants?" They wondered.

She nodded.

"Okay, can I have one of those then?"

Muffet wrote it down and looked to Chara.

"Can I get a chocolate muffin?" They asked.

"Yep! I'll be right back with your orders." She answered, turning to skate away.

"hey, muffet, wait a sec."

"What is it, dearie?" 

"can we get an extra chocolate muffin?"

"Of course." She turned away again and left.

"i'm gonna go check on red. be right back." Papyrus said, before teleporting out of the cafe.

After reaching the house, he walked lazily up the stairs and towards his room. When he opened the door, however, he took one look inside the room and sprinted towards Red, who was tossing and turning, red magic and tears seeping out of his eyesockets. He was glowing red, and it cast a strange light over the whole room.

He was having a night terror. _I can't wake him up...._ Papyrus thought. _I'll do the next best thing though._ He sat down next to Red, and began to run his hand up and down the shuddering skeleton's back, telling him that he was gonna be okay, and that it was just a dream.

-le Red's dream-

_I walk into the living room to see Boss standing in the doorway, holding Paps by the neck. He's almost dust, I can tell. He looks over at me._

_"red.... run...!" he gasps._

_Boss summons a bone and poises it over Pap's soul. Quite suddenly, he drives it in and twists it. Paps lets out a strangled shriek, and turns to dust. I try to move, but it's like my feet are glued to the spot._

_"no..." it comes out in a hoarse sob._

_Boss advances towards me, and I still can't run. He's stopped by a yell from outside the door. Blue's home. He grabs me, and hides behind the couch, covering my mouth with his hand. The door opens and Blue walks in. I try to yell for him to run, but it comes out muffled. Boss lets go of me and jumps at Blue, who has his back turned._

_"BLUE LOOK OUT!!" I yell._

_He whirls around, and I flinch as he's knocked to the ground by a powerful punch from Boss. I still can't move. Boss starts kicking him in the ribs before stepping on his side, putting all his weight into it. Blue screams and there's a crunching sound as his ribs break. There's a ping and he's being lifted up by his soul. Boss starts punching him, doing insane amounts of damage with each blow, and Blue turns to dust._

_Boss turns to me. "Maybe this will teach you not to go running away. Especially not to such a weak place."_

_Suddenly, I'm wearing my collar again, and Boss is attaching the leash to it. I still can't move. He doesn't care. I'm being dragged out of the house, and the world slowly changes from the cheery, kind place I'd come to know, to the place I had wished never to see again and shuddered to remember._ _The gray, dust-covered settlement that is my hometown comes into view, and I squeeze my eye sockets shut. I'm dragged along the path and pulled past where I feel Boss's house should be. I open one eye just as I'm tossed roughly into the shed. I land with a thud and don't move until he shuts the door._

_"you didn't do anything." I know that voice._

_"pap..." I said._

_"YOU COULD HAVE SAVED US!" I know that one, too._

_"and to think i treated you as my own brother."_

_"i'm sorry..." I whimper._

_"I GUESS YOU CAN LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES."_

_"blue..."_

_"whatever. have fun without us, we know you didn't care anyways."_

_"SAD... I HAD BELIEVED IN YOU."_

_I hug my knees to my chest, backing into the corner, and listen to what they have to say. The words hurt..._

_After what seems like an eternity, a voice with a different tone breaks through._

_"red, it's gonna be okay."_

_I look up._

_"p-pap?"_

_He's standing there, holding out his hand to me. I reach for it. The voices around me get louder, denser, as if trying to pull me away from him. I can't reach his hand. I can't-_

_He steps towards me and picks me up, holding me in a tight embrace._

_"it's gonna be okay."_

_I cry into his hoodie, and he rubs my back comfortingly._

_"i l-love you, pap..."_

_-_

"i love you, pap..." Red murmured in his sleep, calming down.

Papyrus relaxed. "i love you too, red."

-

_"i love you too, red." he says._

_I relax and hug him tighter._

_-_

Red hugged Pap tightly, and he pulled out his phone to text Blue.

Papyrus: **hey bro.**

A few moments later, he had an answer.

Sans: **HI!!!**

Papyrus: **i'm a bit stuck at the moment... so when you guys finish just come back here and bring the food, k?**

Sans: **OKAY, BROTHER!!!**

Papyrus sighed and moved so that he was laying down next to Red with his arm around him. 

"'night, bro."

Red muttered something unintelligible, and shifted so he was closer to Papyrus.

Pap smiled and closed his eyes contentedly.

-

Blue opened the door and stepped into the house, followed by Frisk and Chara, the latter holding Flowey. The two humans flopped onto the couch, (after Chara set Flowey on the table, of course.) and Blue headed upstairs to check on his brothers. He looked in their room before looking down at Frisk and Chara and beckoning them upstairs. They headed up, and looked into the room also.

"Aren't they adorable?" Blue whispered.

Frisk about squealed. "Yesssss!!!"

Chara about fell over before steadying themself with Frisk's shoulder. "I'm going to die of cuteness." they stated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I does a fluff?


	13. Separated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok Paperjam is only in this chapter and he'athere because I needed something to happen to make the events in the rest of the story work. This may not really be his canon personality, but neither is what half the fandom headcanons, so really I see no problem. Anyways, enjoy the chapter!

 

Paperjam searched through all the universes he had access to. There were way too many. Some would have to be destroyed... He opened a few portals to look at the universes he had decided to leave alone. He could see why Ink wanted to protect them, but there were just _so many_ , and _someone_ had to keep the balance. He supposed that was his job. He closed the portal to the universe he had been looking at, which was an Outertale universe, and opened another up to an Underswap universe he had been keeping an eye on. It seemed that the three Underfell inhabitants still didn't plan in going back to their original universe anytime soon. _It's probably time to take action,_ he thought. _Which Underfell are they from?_ He opened a few portals to check on a couple different Underfell universes he knew of, but stopped when he saw one that only seemed to have one person in it. _Only a Papyrus? That's not right..._  He opened the Underswap portal right next to that of Underfell. _Time to get started._ He stepped through the Underswap portal. 

None of the street lamps were on as Paper walked through Snowdin, and he was glad for the cover of darkness. Upon reaching the skeleton household, he quietly opened the door and walked in. _I'm gonna need to get all three of them, or when Frisk resets, the other two will be erased from the timeline..._ Well, first things first. He should get Sans. Climbing quietly up the stairs, he tiptoed down the hall to Papyrus's room. Quietly opening the door, he stepped into the room and looked towards the bed, where both skeletons were sleeping. Treading lightly, he made his way over to them, careful of the trash strewn around on the floor. When he was right next to the bed, he gently grabbed hold of Red. He quickly removed the small skeleton from the larger one's embrace, and began backtracking across the room. He had almost reached the door when he stepped on a crumpled up ball of paper. The noise it made caused him jump, which caused Red to open his eyes, glancing around tiredly. He shifted, causing Paperjam to lose his balance. In the struggle to gain it back, he stepped on an empty bottle of honey and slipped, hitting the floor with a _thump._ Across the room, Papyrus opened one eye, and then, upon seeing the intruder, leapt out of bed and sprinted at him.

 _Shit._ Paperjam hurriedly stood and opened a portal, launching himself and Red through it just before Papyrus could stop him. He ended up in Snowdin, in what looked to be Underfell. He quickly stood and opened another portal. Jumping through, he left Red by himself. _I still gotta get the other two._ He came out of the portal in the Underswap skelebros' living room, and quickly grabbed Frisk off the couch and Flowey from his place on the table. He retreated back through the portal, dragging them with him, and closed it just as Papyrus, who had been running down the stairs, reached the living room. 

He fell down onto the snow next to Frisk, exhausted. Sans was nowhere to be seen.

 _Whatever. It's not my problem. My work here is done._ Standing up, he opened up a portal to the antivoid and left.

\- - - 

Papyrus stood in the living room staring as the portal blipped out of existence. 

"red?" He asked, as if hoping for a reply from the empty space that had housed the portal.

He stepped over to the couch and shook the still-sleeping Chara's shoulder. They woke up slowly and looked around.

"Huh?"

"someone kidnapped red." Papyrus said, his voice shaking

"HUH!? WHAT?"

"i don't know. it took frisk and flowey too."

"We gotta follow them!" Chara began to get up and walk towards the door.

Papyrus stopped them. "It left through some kinda portal. wherever it went, i'm pretty sure we won't be able to find it." 

"Oh..."

"chara, you need to load your save file again. then we can stop this from happening." Papyrus told them urgently.

"I can try...." they were _determined_  to go back, after all.

The world went red, and they found themself on a bed of golden flowers. 

"Wait... Why am I here?" Chara wondered. 

 _Had they gone too far back?_ They stood, and then walked decisively towards the doorway for the second time. They came into the room after it, and there, once more, was Temmie. They tried to trick Chara into running into their attacks again. _No sirree, I'm not doing that again._ They thought, dodging the bullets.

"You know what's going on here, don't you?" Temmie glared at them. "You just wanted to see me suffer... DIE!!"

Instead of trying to avoid the bullets, they just stood there, waiting for the event they knew would happen. Sure enough, the bullets were stopped just before they hit Chara, and an attack sent Temmie flying away.

Chara followed Asgore through the ruins, not really listening to what he was saying, and soon found themself alone in the hallway. Instead of waiting as they had the first time, the began to walk out of the room immediately after Asgore left. 

They walked through the rooms filled with puzzles, and solving them a second time proved to be way easier than they anticipated. When they reached the room with the dead tree, they were surprised to see that Asgore did the exact same thing he had the first time, even though they were sure they had gotten through much faster this time. 

 _Huh..._ they thought to themself. Asgore led them into his house and they wasted no time, askng him immediately how they could exit the ruins. He left again, and they followed.

The fight was also easier the second time, and they walked out into Snowdin.  There was no sign of Frisk or Flowey. _Better get moving...._ they thought. They had just passed a firly large limb when something strange happened. It cracked. When they whirled around to see who had caused it, they saw no one. Shrugging it off, they continued walking. It was only a small amount of time, however, before they whirled around again. Strange... they could've sworn they'd heard someone walking...

They reached the gate, but then stopped. There was someone behind them. They could feel it. 

An unidentifiable voice came from where they thought the person was. " **human.** " They stiffened. " **don't you know how to greet a new pal? turn around and shake my hand.** "

They slowly turned around and saw a dark figure holding out its hand. They took it and, to their surprise, a loud fart-like noise came from the stranger's hand.  The figure became more visible, and Chara was surprised to see Papyrus. He had a lazy, smug look on his face. 

"heh. the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it's always funny. you're a hu-" He was cut off buy Chara.

"PAPYRUSOHMYGOSHWHERESREDANDFRISKANDFLOWEY??!!" They yelled.

"how do you know my name? and who are frisk and red...? why would you want to get near a flowey?"

"You don't remember!?"

"uhhhh no...?" Papyrus looked confused. "is this some sorta prank or?"

"Ughghghghghg... You and Red even went on a date!  How do you not remember that?" 

"who's red?"

"Well, he looks like Blu- uhhh... Sans, but he's like shorter, and he has sharp teeth and one of them is gold?" Chara described. 

"sorry, buddy, i dunno anyone who fits that description." Papyrus answered.

"You're the one who told me to load the save file..."

Papyrus jumped at the phrase _save file._ "you can load and save?"

"Yeah."

> "huh. what happened in the last timeline?"

Chara took a deep breath. "YoufoundRedinthesnowandbroughthimhomethenFriskandFloweyshowedupthenIgotoutoftheruinsforthefirsttimeandmetFriskandthenImetyouandthenBlueandthenyougotkilledbyTemmiethenFriskandIhadtoloadabunchandFloweyendedupsavingyouthenyouandRedwentonadatethenwewenttoMuffetsthenRedandFloweyandFriskgotkidnappedandyoutoldmetoloa-"

"ok, chara, that's enough. i remember." Papyrus stopped them with a worried expression on his face. "they're not here, though."

"Oh..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An attempt was made.


	14. Timeline Travel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dumb title

Papyrus and Chara walked towards Snowdin town in silence. They soon reached the skeleton household and entered, Chara taking note of how much more quiet it was. Papyrus flopped down on the couch and patted the spot next to him, gesturing for them to join him. They took a seat and watched the skeleton.

"welp, first things first, we gotta figure out where they are." he began. "if you did a reset, they should've been here like they were  before you fell down, but they're not. i think we can conclude that they are no longer in this timeline. i think we should check red's old timeline first. what do you think?"

"Well, I guess that makes sense, but how do we get there?" They questioned.

"we made a machine to keep the rift between the timelines open before you fell down... that's how frisk got here. it might still be there, so i think we should check that first."

"Okay... I'm hoping you know where it was?" Chara told him.

"yeah. take my hand." He said.

They obliged, and the world disappeared, only to reappear moments later. They found themself back in Snowdin forest, next to a twisted pile of metal. For some reason, the term _modern art_ was the first thing that popped into their head.

"shit." they heard Papyrus say under his breath. "it's like it was after frisk got here... it kinda blew up..." He announced, louder now.

"Well can we fix it?" Chara wondered. 

"yeah, but it may take a while... i had help from undyne last time, but i don't want to pull her into this now."

Chara was about to say something, but they were interrupted by the sound of snow crunching underfoot. They heard a familiar voice from behind them.

"HI PAPS!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE?" He then gasped. "ARE YOU ON A PATROL??"

"nope. sorry to disappoint. i'm here to help a friend."

"WHO ARE YOU HELPING?" Blue asked. 

"well, you may remember him. he's a bit shorter than you, and looks almost exactly the same, except he wears a black hoodie... and...." he was beginning to get tears in his eyes.

Frisk looked at him strangely. His mood had changed so quickly... they didn't know he was this worried... _He must be a really good actor... I had no idea._

Blue cocked his head, staring at Papyrus worriedly. "...PAP? ARE YOU OKAY?"

"yeah, bro. i'm fine." Papyrus said, obviously lying.

"PAP..."

Chara spoke up. "He's worried about Red. That's who he was just describing. Do you want to help us help him?"

Blue looked at Chara. He didn't seem to have noticed them before. "WELL OF COURSE!! ANY FRIEND OF PAPY'S IS A FRIEND OF MINE. HOW CAN I HELP?? WHO ARE YOU, BY THE WAY?"

"Well I'm Chara!  You can help by remembering." They responded.

"REMEMBERING WHAT?"

Papyrus butted in. He seemed to have recovered from his sudden emotion. "remembering red, and frisk, and flowey."

"I'VE NEVER HEARD THOSE NAMES BEFORE! WHO ARE THEY? MAYBE I CAN REMEMBER IF YOU DESCRIBE THEM AND HOW I KNOW THEM??"

"well-" Papyrus began, but was cut off by Chara.

"Frisk looks kinda like me, but their skin is darker, they have dark brown hair, and they wear a pink-striped blue sweater. Like Papyrus said, Red looks like you, but he has a crack in one eye socket, sharp teeth, and he wears black and red clothes like what Pap wears. Flowey is a flower, kinda like a sunflower, but not quite. You know Frisk because you showed them all your puzzles, and you know Red because you got him and Pap to go on a date, and you know Flowey because when Frisk and I went missing, you went looking for us with hi-"

"OH!! I REMEMBER... WHERE ARE THEY?" Blue looked even more worried now.

"we don't know, but we think we know how to get them back." Papyrus said.

"WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR??" Blue yelled.

Papyrus shrugged. "we gotta make a portal." he began to pick up the pieces with his blue magic, untwisting and assembling them seemingly with ease.

Blue got the idea, and began untwisting some pieces with his blue magic. After untwisting them, he let Papyrus take over to assemble them.

Chara stood there awkwardly, waiting for something they could help with. The skeletons eventually finished, but it was obvious that the machine was not complete.

Blue voiced Chara's thoughts. "WHAT NOW?"

"we're gonna have to go to the dump for some resources." Papyrus said, looking rather determined. 

He held out both his hands, and Chara took the right while Blue took the left. He then teleported them to Waterfall.

"What are we looking for?" Chara squinted, staring around at the dimly lit dump.

"anything metal." papyrus answered. Grabbing a large, torn tablecloth from a nearby trash pile, he spread it onto a relatively flat lump of garbage. "put anything electrical or metal here."

Chara and Blue nodded, and he three split up, searching through the trash for anything that looked remotely useful. Chara found a couple of pop cans, and held them in one arm, while using the other to feel under the water for more. Their hand hit something, and they grabbed it and pulled on it. It came loose from where it was wedged between two rocks, and Chara fell backwards. They sat up and looked at what they had found. It was a computer. They grinned to themself before standing back up and walking over to deposit their load onto the tablecloth.

After a few hours, the group had made a rather sizeable pile of metal and electronics on the tablecloth. "this should be enough." Papyrus announced. 

He teleported away with the tablecloth, which he had folded around the metal, and soon returned without it, holding out both hands. The others took them, and he teleported them to the machine. He began to sort through the bag, separating metals from electronics. When he came across the computer, he grinned.

"this is perfect!!"

Chara smiled to themself. 

Papyrus kept sorting, but eventually went back to the elecronics pile and grabbed the computer. He grabbed a rock and smashed it, pulling some wires out of it. He connected some of them with the ones in the machine, and went back to the pile for more. He worked quickly, and on occasion asked Chara or Blue to help him with something. A long while later, he stood back, finished. 

Blue looked over at Chara, only to find that they had fallen asleep.

"HEY, CHARA. HE'S DONE." He shook them gently.

Chara woke up slowly and looked in the direction of the machine. They and Blue watched as Papyrus went to turn the machine on.

"WAIT! PAPY! WE NEED TO REST FIRST."

"bro... we gotta help red." Papyrus stared at him.

Blue shook his head. 

Chara spoke up. "He has a point, Pap. You're tired, and the place Red's from is meaner than this one. You need to keep your strength up."

"but red..."

"He's lived there a long time. He can survive a bit longer." Chara stated.

Papyrus's expression changed. "okay. but the moment we're rested up we're going through."

He grabbed their arms and teleported home, walking immediately up to his room.

Chara sat on the couch and watched Blue head up the stairs and down the hall to his room. 

"'Night, Blue."

"GOODNIGHT CHARA." He said with a little less than his usual cheeriness.

He was worried, and it was pretty obvious. _Then again, who isn't?_ Chara thought. They shifted into a more comfortable position and fell asleep.

Around six hours later, they were shaken awake by Papyrus. "hey, we're going now. you coming?

"Yeah... Gotta pack some stuff first though." They responded.

Papyrus nodded, and walked into the kitchen, where Blue was making breakfast burritos. "i don't see why we can't just go." 

"I TOLD YOU, PAPYRUS. WE NEED TO BE AT OUR STRONGEST WHEN WE GO." Blue answered, rather annoyed. 

Chara walked into the kitchen, shouldering a small backpack. "How many times has he asked that?"

"ONLY ABOUT TWELVE.... ALRIGHT, I FINISHED THE BURRITOS." Blue announced. 

He pulled out three plates and put two burritos on each plate. He then handed one to Papyrus, and one to Chara. 

Papyrus ate his in about four bites and impatiently watched Chara and Blue eat theirs.

"we gotta go save red **right now**. why are you stalling? you're not even acting worried!" Papyrus urged.

"We're trying to look on the bright side. We don't have to share what we're thinking." Chara said, finishing their burritos. "Blue, you done?"

Blue nodded and he and Chara got up and walked towards the door, before Papyrus stopped them.

"i'll teleport us there. it's quicker."

Blue and Chara walked back over to him and both grabbed his hands. The world disappeared, and when it reappeared, they were in Snowdin forest. Papyrus wasted no time in running over to the machine and switching it on. It whirred to life, and the air next to it seemed to ripple. The area behind the ripple was darker than it should've been, and the snow was a dark gray.

"welp. i'm going through." Papyrus announced before advancing towards it.

Blue and Chara hurriedly followed suit. The pristine white snow and calm, welcoming atmosphere of their timeline's Snowdin forest disappeared behind them. 

\- - -

Red ran as quickly as he could towards his boss's house. He'd fallen asleep at his sentry station again and had woken up an hour after he was supposed to be home. 

He reached the house and was about to reach for the doorknob when the door was suddenly opened from the inside.

"b-boss!"

"You're late." He crossed his arms and waited expectantly for an excuse.

"i'm sorry! i was at my p-post and i fell asleep- i-i swear i didn't mean to-ACK!" He was cut off as Boss slapped him hard, sending him off balance. 

He fell backwards into the snow and felt his brother's boot stepping down on his ribcage.

"You fell asleep."

"i-i'm... s-s-sorr... sorry... i d-didn't m-mean-" Red gasped.

"Shut up. I don't need any excuses from you. I should probably start disciplining you more harshly. You don't seem to want to listen."

"n-no! i'll listen! i swear!!"

"I've heard that too many times."

Before Red knew it, he was being dragged towards the shed next to the house. Boss threw him in, and his skull hit the back wall with a crack. Walking in after him, the taller skeleton picked him up by his soul and began relentlessly smashing him against the walls. He closed his eyes and tried not to cry out each time his body hit a surface. 

When Papyrus finally stopped, there were stains on the walls and floor from bone marrow, and Red was curled up in a growing puddle of the stuff, unmoving.

"Is that really all you can take?" Papyrus lifted his brother up and looked at him.

He hung limply by his soul, marrow dripping off him in thin streams.

"p-please... i-i'll be g-good..." Red pleaded.

"Shut up." Boss summoned a large bone and swung it forcefully at his brother. 

Red was unable to dodge and the bone hit him with full force, winding him and fracturing a few ribs.

He whimpered quietly, unable to hold it in.

Boss dropped him and kicked him before dragging him by his collar over to the wall. He took a very short chain that was attached to it and hooked it onto Red's collar. He gave it an experimental tug to check it's strength, earning a yelp from the skeleton attached to it. He smirked and grabbed Red's face, forcing him to make eye contact. He stayed like that for a moment, enjoying the terror in the other's eyes, before dropping him and walking out of the room. 

After he was gone, Red curled into a ball, tears coming to his eyes. He whimpered and hugged his knees to himself as a vain attempt to keep warm. He squeezed his eyesockets shut as more tears threatened to come. A feeling he knew all too well began to form in his soul. His throaght felt squeezed. Another whimper escaped him, then a small sob. He hugged his knees tighter as sobs wracked his body. _i-i'm sorry..._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit to enjoying torturing the skeleton--


	15. Fights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *growls at the title*  
> Why are you dumb  
> Why am I dumb
> 
> Ugh

Chara took a few steps into this dismal timeline and looked back towards the cheerier, more welcoming place behind them. They shivered. It wasn't any colder than it had been, but the chill in the air had a bitter edge to it, and the place gave off an unpleasant feeling. 

They looked ahead to where Papyrus was walking, and picked up their pace to catch up with him. Blue followed suit. A rustling noise could be heard behind them, and all three whirled around instinctively when it intensified. 

"P-papyrus? Blue? C-Chara?" a familiar voice stuttered.

"Frisk!!" Chara ran towards them and tackled them with a hug, knocking them over.

"Ow! Hey, watch it! You're crushing me!" An annoyed voice exclaimed.

Chara scrambled off their counterpart and looked at the flower perched on their shoulder.

"Flowey!" They smiled at him. 

  Blue, who had been watching the whole thing, smiled halfheartedly and waved at them, while Papyrus, who was standing behind Blue just stared.

"have you seen red?" the taller skeleton asked quietly.

Frisk's expression changed and they shook their head. "We haven't been here long."

They got to their feet and walked over to him, and before he could figure out what they were doing, they had him wrapped in a hug.

"We'll find him, don't worry." 

Papyrus half smiled, and returned the embrace. "okay, kid. i'll take your word for it. we should get going though."

Frisk nodded, and began walking off in the direction of Snowdin town. The small group hurriedly followed.

When they reached the outskirts of the town, Flowey stopped them. "You can't just walk into town like this. It's madness."

"Huh?" Chara questioned. "Why not?" 

"Wh- Because!! You'll kinda sorta die?? People will kill you??" Flowey stressed. 

"i think i know what you mean." Papyrus said.  

"You guys wait here. I'll tell you when he coast is clear." 

Flowey transplanted himself behind a nearby building and looked around. There wasn't anyone around, so he took the chance to transplant himself to the skelebro's house, in Red's room. He wasn't there. _Strange... he wasn't at his sentry station earlier when I checked... so where is he?_ He thought.

He plunged back into the ground and came up at the station. _Yeah he's not here.... I didn't hear any yelling, so he's not being beat up in the living room.... where is he?_

Flowey transplanted himself next to the house and looked around. He heard a noise and jumped.

Whirling around to face the shed, he listened closer. Yes, he hadn't been  mistaken. There was a slightly muted whimpering noise coming from inside.

He steeled himself and transported himself into the shed. The whimpering continued for a moment, but then there was a pause and a timid voice.

"w-who's th-there?"

"S-sans? Is that you?"

"f-flowey?" Red croaked.

"Yeah, it's me." Flowey answered.

There was a shuffling noise, and the clanking of a chain. "where are you?"

Flowey pulled himself closer using his vines, and half jumped when he felt the skeleton's hand against one of his petals. He was tugged towards the other, and pulled into a hug. Red embraced Flowey tightly, and the flower wrapped two of his vines around him to return the hug.

Red eventually let go. "w-what are you d-doing here?"

"I'm gonna get you out." Flowey answered. "I need to go do something, but I'll be right back. I promise."

"o-okay..."

Flowey quietly transplanted himself back to the others. "I found him!" 

"you did!? where is he!?"

"He's in the shed. I don't think he's doing so well. I'm gonna go back to him and try to get him to remember. You guys try to get there without being seen. Don't teleport. I don't think the code here is quite the same."

Before anyone could respond, Flowey had transplanted himself away.

"Red?" he asked, now back in the shed.

"i-i'm here..."

Flowey moved towards his friend's voice, and eventually reached him, settling himself right next to the skeleton. 

"y-you said you w-were g-gonna get me out? h-how?"

"I have some friends. You've met them before, but I don't think you'll remember."

"w-who are they?" Red questioned uncertainly. 

"Well.... One of them looks a lot like you, actually. His name is Blue. There's two humans, Frisk and Chara, and a guy who looks a lot like... Well, he looks a lot like your brother."

"b-boss!?" Red was alarmed.

"No. It's not him. Imagine Papyrus, but without the scar and sharp teeth... um.... he's a lot nicer, and I know for a fact he'd never hurt you."

"d-does he wear o-orange? th-there's s-something... i can't th-think of it c-clearly though."

"Yes! He does! Can you remember anything else?" Flowey questioned.

"i remember feeling warm... and laughing..." Red struggled to reach the memory.

"You're getting there. I know you can do it. Keep thinking." Flowey urged.

"i-i can't r-remember..."

There was a noise from the other side of the shed and a thud.

"flowey? you here?" a voice asked from the direction of the noise.

"Papyrus? I told you not to teleport!" Flowey stressed.

"well we got here, didn't we?"

"Well you still shouldn't have done that! You could have hurt yourselves!"

"okay, mom." Papyrus answered.

"Ugh, shut up, you walking lamp post."

"that's a new one."

"OH MY GOSH PAPYRUS, YOU'RE SITTING ON ME!" a new voice yelled.

"Shhhh!" Flowey warned. 

"OH! Sorry." Blue apologized, _sans_  his usual dynamics. (yes I did)

"b-boss?" Red asked, his voice wavering.

"huh? red, is that you?"

"Papyrus, don't get too close, he hasn't fully remembered yet and I don't want to scare him." Flowey said. 

"Red?" a blue light filled the dark shed, and Red could make out Flowey next to him, and four other forms from the other side of the shed. 

"b-blue?" Red was confused at the name, but it felt right, so he decided to go with it.

"You remember my name?" 

"y-yeah, i-i think..."

Blue hurried towards Red and enveloped him in a hug.

"ow!" Red whimpered. 

Blue quickly moved off him. "I'm so sorry! did I hurt you?"

"n-no, i-i'm okay..."

"I don't believe you." His eye flashed green as he shook his head and grabbed Red's hand. 

The green magic flowed from his hand to the other's, and Red felt the pain all over his body alleviate. 

"Is that better?"

"y-yeah, thanks, br- um..." He caught himself.

Blue drew in a quick breath. "s-sorry!" Red stammered quickly. 

"No! It's fine!"

"o-okay...  b-brother." Red answered.

It was like the word was a key, because the moment he said it, everything from the moment he showed up in his brothers' world to when he was taken away from them came back to him. 

He gasped and looked over towards the other three, who were watching from the corner, not wanting to interfere with whatever was going to happen. 

He reached up to his neck and slowly, shakily unhooked the chain from his collar. Standing up unsteadily, he slowly made his way over to the tallest of the three. When he reached him, he looked up at him for a moment before taking one more step and pulling Papyrus towards him in a hug. Papyrus wasted no time in returning the embrace, picking Red up and gently clanking his teeth against the top of his skull.

Blue stood, and walked over to join them, and pretty soon the other three joined as well. 

There was a loud noise as the door was forcefully opened, pulling them from their reunion. They all whirled to face the door and stared at the dark figure that was blocking the dim light from outside. 

"Sans. Who are these people?"

Red began to shake, and was about to say something when Pap stepped in front of him. 

"so are you the 'boss' i've heard so much about?"  A hint of orange could be seen in his right eye.

"Is that a threat?" Boss sounded angry.

"maybe." Papyrus's eye flared brighter.

"You don't want to do that." Boss warned, summoning a bone in one hand.

Papyrus summoned a volley of bones and sent them towards his adversary, who dodged them easily.

"Hah! Is that the best you can do?" Boss quickly brought his hand up from his side and summoned a number of sharpened bones under Papyrus.

Papyrus jumped, and, teleporting mid-jump, ended up behind his enemy. Boss whirled around, looking for him, and he took the chance, sending more bones at him while he was confused. 

"Red, can you teleport?" Papyrus shot the question at the smaller skeleton, before refocusing on the fight and dodging the many sharp bones that were trying to skewer him.

"i-i think i can..." Red answered.

"i need you to- Oh!" He was interrupted as a few bones came from behind him. Noticing them at the last moment, he jumped out of the way and, summoning a bone in his hands, began to knock away the others that were coming. "i need you to get them out of here. don't worry, i'll come right after you."

Red stared for a moment, and then nodded. Trying to ignore the fight that was going on right in front of him, he scooped up Flowey from the ground and let him wrap himself around his shoulder. He then grabbed the two human's hands (Blue grabbed Chara's other hand), and steeled himself. Frisk, on his right, gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.

"i-i can do this." He murmured, more to himself than anyone else. 

He shut his eyes tight and reached inside himself, trying as hard as he could to reach the small amount of magic he could feel there. It wasn't working. He opened his eyes, defeated, and was about to say something when a large bone came speeding towards him. He jumped, closing his eyes and bracing himself for the impact of the projectile, but his magic seemed to have different plans. He opened his eyes to see snow and trees. He'd ended up in the forest. He glanced around to see his friends sprawled out around him in the snow. 

Chara picked themself up from where they had faceplanted in the snow. They looked around, and, upon seeing Red, launched themself at him.

"You did it!" they said.

Red laughed shakily. "y-yeah..." he was exhausted.

Frisk and Blue also picked themselves up and made their way to Red and Chara.

"Mweh heh heh! I knew you could do it!!" cheered Blue, still speaking more quietly than usual.

"w-what about p-pap?" (ppap I have a pen, i have an apple. apple pen! I have a pen, I have pineapple. pineapple pen! apple pen, pineapple pen, pen pineapple apple pen. pen pineapple apple pen.) Red asked.

"Don't worry. I've seen Papy fight before, and he's really strong. He'll be okay. You, on the other hand, need help." Blue answered. "Do any of you happen to have any food?"

"I do!" Chara and Frisk responded at the same time.

"I have something called a Spider Donut, and some Monster Candy. I don't know if I can trust it, though." Frisk volunteered.

"I have some muffins from Muffet's... Heh that rhymed." Chara expressed, pulling a paper bag out of their backpack and grabbing one out.

Blue took the muffin and handed it to Red, who nodded gratefully and took it. As the small skeleton slowly ate the muffin, the others tried to make conversation. 

Red didn't pay any attention to them. He  had taken a bite of the pastry ( _are muffins even pastries? I couldn't use 'muffin' again cause I've used it too many times already, so I'm gonna go with it._ ) and had realized how famished he was. He quickly finished it off.

"Want another, Red?" Chara asked, holding out the bag that held the rest of the muffins.

Red nodded quickly. "yes p-please!" 

Chara tossed the bag at him, and it nearly knocked him over upon hitting him. "c-careful! heh... i'm still not very st-strong."

"Sorry," the human apologized.

Red nodded, giving a small smile before reaching in the bag and pulling out a second muffin. He had it down almost as fast as the first. After deciding that he'd had enough food, he handed the rest of the muffins back to Chara, who shoved them back in their backpack.

"Feeling better?" Flowey asked. He was worried about Red, but wouldn't admit it.

"y-yeah, thanks, f-flowey."

\- - -

Boss smiled menacingly. His adversary was slowing. It was becoming quite clear that he wouldn't last much longer. It was his turn, so he sent a complicated pattern of bones in the other's direction, hoping to confuse him. Papyrus, however, dodged them with relative ease, which infuriated Boss. 

What infuriated him more, however, was when Papyrus just stopped fighting on his turn. 

"What are you doing." He growled angrily.

"taking a break. what does it look like i'm doing?"

"You can't just take a break in the middle of the battle!"

"it's my turn, i'll do what i want."

Boss crossed his arms and glared at Papyrus. _Who does he think he is?_ he thought. His angry frown soon changed into a smile, however, when he realized that Papyrus's eye sockets were slipping shut. Boss grinned, and took a few agonizingly slow steps towards the other. He was eventually right next to the sleeping skeleton. He summoned a bone and raised it up. He swung it down suddenly, rapidly. 

He let out a startled "Huh!?" when it hit open air. 

"did you really think you could hit me?" A voice asked from his right. 

He glanced in the direction of the voice and saw his enemy just standing there nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened. The anger inside him bubbled up, and he was about to run at the other skeleton when he got an idea. 

He summoned a bone in his hand and stepped towards the other, raising it high. He swung down with it, and at the exact same time summoned more bones on his adversary's left and right, and behind him. 

Papyrus saw the bone coming towards him, and quickly jumped to the left... right into a volley of more projectiles.

He was immediately down, clutching a the spot on his side where he'd been hit. He tried to stand, but was harshly kicked onto his back by Boss. He felt a pressure on his ribcage and looked up to see the other skeleton looking down at him. One of his feet was on Papyrus, and the other was on the ground. He leaned more of his weight onto Papyrus, and summoned a bone.

Holding it against Papyrus's neck, he smiled evilly. 

"Here's how this is going to work. I'm going to ask some questions, and for every truthful answer, I'll make your death quicker. If you lie, well... I think you know what'll happen without me telling you."

\- - -

"w-what is taking p-papyrus so long?" Red questioned, worried. 

"Maybe he doesn't know where we are? He could be looking for us." Blue offered. 

"but w-what if he's still fighting b-boss?" he voiced his worries.

"He's tough. Don't worry." Blue assured him.

"i need to make sure he's okay."

"Trust me, Red. He's fi-" but Red was already gone.

Red arrived back at the shed, breathless from his teleportation. His eye sockets widened at the scene before him. 

"First question. How do you know Sans, and what do you want with him?" Boss was asking Papyrus, who he had pinned on the ground.

Red stood there, shivering from the cold, and shaking from his fear of his Boss. He had to do something, though. He steeled himself mentally and physically for what he was about to do. 

\- - -

Papyrus had gotten himself in a predicament. He was too weak to teleport, and he would not last much longer if he stayed near this version of himself. He could feel the normally strong pulsing of his soul fading a bit, and was rather alarmed. He was forced out of his thoughts by a blow to his head. **crack**. It was a moment before he felt the pain in his eye socket. But when he did, he almost screamed.  The searing pain coming from his eye socket and the area above it was almost too much to handle. He didn't have time to think about it, however, because a black and red blur had just rushed in front of his eyes. He squinted with his good eye, and made out a familiar face. 

"re-" he was cut off as he slipped from consciousness.

\- - -

Blue, Flowey, and the humans waited in silence for Red's return. Blue was visibly worried, and the two children were glancing around anxiously, looking for any sign of Red. Frisk opened their mouth to say something, but didn't get the chance, as there was a yelp and a thump from behind them, followed by a gasp.

Chara and Frisk turned around to see what Blue and Flowey were staring at, and were shocked to see Red, breathing hard, half-dragging Papyrus towards them. Behind him, a menacing, infuriated version of the latter was trying to get his bearings.

"b-blue! help me get Papyrus o-over there!" Red yelled towards his counterpart. 

Blue, pulled out of his confusion by Red's voice, sprang into action and got on the other side of Papyrus, slipping one of his arms around him and helping Red move him towards the others. When they reached them, Boss had regained his sense of direction and was following them, closing in rapidly. 

"f-flowey, get them out of here!" Red ordered.

Flowey nodded and grabbed Frisk, Chara, and the unconscious Papyrus with his vines. He pulled them towards the  area where the machine was. 

Red, assured that Flowey would get his friends to safety, turned back to face his brother.

"you should go, blue."

"NO. I'M GOING TO HELP YOU." Blue answered, looking stubborn and determined.

Red saw that there was no point in arguing with him. He nodded.

Boss had reached them now, and was standing a few feet away, staring at them. 

Red called on his magic, and a large gaster blaster appeared behind him. The success made him more confident. He could do this.  

Blue, next to him, summoned a few bones, holding them above his head, ready to send them flying at Boss at any moment.

Boss wordlessly grinned and brought his hand up quickly, summoning a number of sharp bones under Red's feet. Red jumped out of the way.

"w-we don't have to fight." He stated. "y-you can come with us!"

"Shut up. Do you really think I'm going to fall for that bullshit? you fucking idiot!" He emphasized his answer by sending a volley of bones in the two skeletons' direction. 

Red glanced at the gaster blaster behind him. He stared at it for a moment, before turning back to face Boss, wearing a resolute expression. Steeling himself, he fired the blaster, dropping to the ground as the powerful beam from it shot over his head, straight at Boss. He didn't move, just stared at Red, rather surprised, as the beam hit him. When the sound from the weapon died down and the magic cleared, he was still standing there, staring at Red as if confused. Red stared right back at him, panting from the exertion of using the attack. Boss shook his head and quickly brought himself out of his rather dazed state, before sending scores of bones towards Blue and Red. Blue didn't seem to have any trouble dodging them, but Red, exhausted from summoning and using the gaster blaster, had difficulty keeping himself from being hit. 

After a long while of barely being missed by the many projectiles aimed at him, Red collapsed with a cry as one of them caught him in the shoulder, driving into his collar bone and almost breaking it. Blue saw this and rushed to help his friend.   
  


"RED! ARE YOU OKAY?" He helped him to his knees and supported his back. 

Pulling out Red's soul, he CHECKed it. 

_0.3/1_

He gasped and quickly picked Red up, moving him behind a nearby tree. He sent as much healing magic he could into the wounded skeleton, before standing up and walking back out to face Boss, who had advanced towards them. Quickly, he dodged around Boss's legs, and, summoning a bone in his hands, attempted to trip him. While this only succeeded in knocking him off balance, it was time enough for Blue move himself back in front of Boss and send a few attacks in his direction.

Red, having just gotten his wits about him, glanced around the tree, and upon seeing Blue fighting his Boss, attempted to get up. He lost his balance and fell back against the tree with a quiet yelp. Closing his eyesockets, he breathed in and out a few times, preparing to try again. opening his eyesockets once more, he slowly stood, using the tree for support. He found that his legs were able to support his own weight now, so he took a small step around the tree and peeked at the fighting skeletons. Blue was doing quite well, dodging around Boss's feet, sending bones at him from unexpected angles, and tripping him at every opportunity. He avoided all of Boss's attacks, only being hit once or twice the entire time.

 _He's doing really well,_ Red thought, _But he can't dodge forever. I have to help somehow._

Boss was getting frustrated. The little blue skeleton was dodging his attacks almost flawlessly, and using his small size to his advantage. This had to stop. He noticed his enemy turning to run in towards him, probably to try to trip him again. As the small monster came in, he summoned a large bone and swung it at his adversary, knocking him away. Blue was sent flying into a tree, hitting it with a yelp of pain, before falling and landing on the ground by its roots. He attempted to move, to get up, but he had barely lifted his head when his nonexistent muscles gave up and he fell back to the ground. 

Red winced as he saw what happened to Blue. He had to help somehow.

Steeling himself, he sprinted from his tree to another, before stopping and making sure Boss hadn't heard him. He did this a few more times, growing ever closer to Blue. He looked around the tree that was serving as his current hiding place before drawing in a horrified breath at what he saw. In the time he had been running to this tree, Boss had advanced towards Blue and picked him up by his soul. Blue hung limply from it, shaking slightly. 

The taller skeleton summoned a large, pointed bone and held it above Blue's head with his magic.

"Come out, come out, Sans. If you don't, I'll kill your precious friend here." He warned.

"D-don't come out, Red!" Blue stammered, having difficulty speaking. 

"Oh, I wouldn't listen to him. Hey, you know what? Since you can't seem to decide whether to show yourself, I'll help you out a little." 

The bone above Blue's head disappeared, and Boss pulled up his shirt, grabbing one of his ribs and tugging on it, earning a whimper from Blue. 

Red winced, remembering his own experience in that situation. The memory was enough to force him to his feet, and he almost left the safety of his hiding place before Blue spoke again. 

"D-don't... Don't come o-out!!" He cried.

Boss pulled the rib out with a sickening crack, and Blue barely suppressed a scream. Without a second thought, Red sprinted out of his hiding place and flung himself at Boss.

"stop!!" He yelled desperately. 

He hurried towards where Boss had dropped Blue into the snow, and ended up on his knees next to the other skeleton.

"blue!!" He stared at the growing red stain on Blue's shirt, unsure of what to do. 

\- - -

Papyrus opened one eyesocket to see the ceiling of his house. Wait... his house? What had happened? He opened his other socket, but couldn't see anything. He was also surprised to find that it smarted. He winced, closing it again. Bringing his hand up to it, around it. He drew in a quick breath when his fingertips found the long crack running up from his eye socket.  Sitting up, he looked around the room with his good eye.

Hearing the door open, he turned around to see who it was.

"Papyrus! You're awake!" Frisk said from the door.

"huh?" 

"We were worried!!" The child tackled him with a hug.

Chara, who had walked in behind them, joined the hug. Flowey, who was wrapped around their shoulder, wiggled out of the embrace so as not to be squished. 

"where are red and blue?" Papyrus asked.

Frisk sighed sadly. "...They haven't gotten back yet." 

"what do you mean by that!?"

"Well... I don't know what happened for sure, but after Red teleported us away from where you were fighting the other you, he was really impatient. He ended up teleporting himself back to make sure you were okay, and when he came back, you were with him, but you were knocked out... Other you had grabbed onto him while he was teleporting, I guess, because he was there too... Red told Flowey to get you, me, and Chara somewhere safe and we left through the rift. Blue and Red still haven't come back..."

"how long was i out?" 

"Actually, we got back about twenty minutes ago. You weren't out long at all. We just went to get Dr. Undyne to help. The machine was going crazy after we went through, so we asked her to check on it. We got her to remember the last timeline, and once she did, she told us to wait here for her."

"you can wait, i'm going back through." Papyrus stood up from the couch, taking a moment to balance himself

"No. She told us not to use it again until she checks on it. It might break and then Red and Blue would be stranded." Flowey pointed out.

Papyrus flopped back onto the couch. "damn."

-time skip (i know these are for lazy people but cut me some slack, i've spent a lot of time on this chapter eheheheheh....)-

There was a knock at the door. Papyrus sprang up from the couch and near sprinted to the door, flinging it open.

"H-Hey, Papyrus, I- Woah what h-happened to your eye!?" Undyne gasped at the sight of the crack in his skull.

"never mind that come on its time to go frisk chara grab my arm and make sure to bring flowey let's go." 

Frisk and Chara both grabbed his arm, Flowey wrapping himself around Frisk's shoulder. The world disappeared, and when it reappeared they were out in Snowdin Forest. Papyrus shoved Undyne towards the machine. 

"okay check the machine go go go go go" He urged impatiently, sounding rather worried.

Undyne studied the machine for a moment. "U-um... There's nothing I can do here... This machine doesn't have long. I'm sorry Papyrus, but if your brothers ever hope to get back, they're going to have to do it soon. We can't disturb the rift, because it might close earlier than need be. All we can do is wait."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I tried.


	16. Forgiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow look a dumb title for a dumb chapter
> 
> Hhhhhhh  
> Help me

 

Red stared at Blue, who had his eyes closed, clutching at his ribs. He frantically wondered what to do.

"b-blue! i n-need you to calm d-down, i'm gonna try to heal you." He explained.

Boss watched them, rather numbly. Normally he would've recovered from a mere shove by now, but he couldn't seem to get his wits about him. His mind was trying to think about way too many things, one of which being something it didn't seem to want to remember. He reached into himself and tried to pull the memory up, but it was just out of his reach.

Red relaxed and breathed in and out, before grabbing Blue's hand and hoping desperately that it would work. Shutting his eyesockets, he concentrated. When he opened his eyes again, he was relieved to see that green magic was flowing from his hands and into Blue's.  He sighed.

Turning around, he glanced towards Boss, and was confused to see that he was staring at his hands, shaking.

"b-boss?"

Boss stared at his hands, trying to get a clear image of them. He heard a voice trying to reach him, but he was focusing too much on trying to remember. A blurry image came to his head. He saw black, gold, and red. Lots of red. He heard a muffled noise and soon made it out to be his brother, screaming for mercy. He heard himself yelling, but not well enough.

"Urrghgh why can't I REMEMBER!?!?" Red flinched backwards and yelped as his Boss yelled.

"w-wait... what?" He murmered quietly.

Boss had his eyesockets closed, seemingly concentrating on something.

Red took a few steps towards him, until he was right in front of the other skeleton. Shaking, he reached forward, pulling him towards him in a hug. He shook harder, and it took all his focus to not let go and run away. 

Boss felt someone wrap their arms around his neck, and slowly opened his eyes. 

"Sans..?" he questioned, confused. 

Red jumped at the sound of his Boss's voice, but didn't stop hugging him.

Boss remembered something, but it wasn't the memory he had been looking for.

_The cold wind battered against them. He was behind his brother, being protected from the storm. The small amount of food his brother had found was not enough, and he felt very hungry. His brother's stomach rumbled loudly. Sans had not eaten any food, having given it all to Papyrus. His bones were beginning to freeze, but still, he stayed at the front of their little hovel, blocking his little brother from the wind. Always protecting._

Now, he felt his brother's arms around his neck, still gentle and loving as the form curled around him, blocking him from the snow that night. _Even now, he still cares? After all I've done to him?_ The memories came back.

Boss gasped and wrapped his arms around his brother, tightly (but gently) embracing him.

"I-I'm sorry..." He sobbed.

"i-it's okay... b-bro..." Red answered shakily, still not completely comprehending the situation.

The word 'bro' made Boss cry harder. "Y-you forgive m-me?" Tears fell down his face freely.

"y-yeah... you're my brother, o-of course i do... i... i think you deserve a second chance." Red found that he actually meant it. 

 _I should be angry,_ he thought. _After what he did to Blue... and to Paps... But I'm not..._

"Th-thanks, Sans..." Boss kept crying.

"u-um... actually, it's red, now." Red corrected.

Boss pulled back from the hug and looked at him, confused.

"i don't wanna get mixed up with blue," He explained. "we're both sans."

"Wait, he's Sans too?" 

"y-yeah. wait a second... you're gonna need a name too, and so is other paps, so we don't mix you up." 

Blue, who had been watching the whole thing, jumped in. "I'm gonna call you Edge." He stated matter-of-factly.

"w-well then, edge, i g-guess that's your nickname now." Red smiled at his brother. "w-wanna c-come home?"

"Okay... But where is that?" The newly-named Edge asked.

"Follow me!!" Blue went to stand up, but lost his balance and fell. 

"i-i think you're gonna n-need a little help, blue." Red advised.

He stood up, making his way towards Blue, and helped him up, throwing one of his arms over his shoulder. "ya good?" he asked.

"Yeah, thanks, Red." Blue smiled.

"are you coming, edge?" Red looked back at his bro.

"Yeah." Edge walked towards them.

"w-wait a minute." Red grabbed Edge's arm and teleported them all to Edge's house.

Blue stared around at the complete mess the inside of the house was, while Red pulled Edge up the stairs.

"y-you need to change into something less... i-intimidating." He explained.

Edge nodded and stepped into his room, closing the door. A short amount of time later, he came back out, dressed in a gray long-sleeve shirt, and some black sweatpants.

"This better?"

Red smiled. "y-yeah..."

Walking back down the stairs, Red joined Blue, who was leaning against the wall by the couch. 

Edge reached the bottom of the stairs, before stopping and staring at Red. He then walked towards the smaller skeleton, causing him to flinch out of reflex. Edge sighed sadly.

"I just want to take your collar off." Edge tried calmly.

Red nodded and stood perfectly still, trembling a bit, as Edge got closer and reached towards the fastener on his collar, unbuckling it. After doing so, Edge quickly threw the collar away.

"sh-should we go now?" Red asked.

"Yeah!" Blue smiled, reaching over and grabbing Red's hand. Red held out his free hand to Edge, who took it slowly, so as not to startle him. 

The world disappeared and the three of them reappeared back in the forest. 

"c-come on." Red said, leading them past the trees.

Suddenly, the snow became a brighter, more cheerful white. The atmosphere was immediately more relaxed. Edge looked around curiously, until a sound from behind him caused him to turn around. He didn't have time to see what it was, however, when there was a large explosion. Without thinking, he threw himself in front of Red to prevent anything from hitting him. 

After a couple seconds, the noise died down, and Edge looked up. Quickly, he sat up and looked behind where he had landed. To his relief, Red was there, and he looked unharmed. Edge himself was mostly okay, aside from a few minor hits he had taken from flying rubble.

He glanced around. "Blue?" He called.

"I'M OVER HERE!" was Blue's answer. 

Edge looked in the direction of Blue's voice, and was relieved to see that Blue was also okay. turning back to his brother, he picked the small skeleton up, beginning to walk over towards Blue.

"i-i'm not a baby b-bones, I can wa-" Red cut himself off in the middle of his sentence as his eyes drooped and he let his head fall onto his younger brother's shoulder. Edge snickered and shifted his brother to his back so he was easier to carry.

 Glancing back up towards Blue, he was surprised when there was no sign of the smaller skeleton. That is, until he heard him yell from nearby.

"PAPY!!!" 

"blue!!" Edge heard someone else answer.

He turned his head in the direction of the noise just in time to see Blue fling himself at a figure dressed in an orange hoodie. The figure caught him and hugged him tightly, before Blue scrambled out of his embrace and began tugging him towards where Edge was standing. The figure, who Edge assumed was Blue's version of Papyrus, noticed him after awhile of this. 

" **YOU.** " He growled, his eye flaring orange.

"NO! PAPY, YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO FIGHT EDGE!!" Blue ran in front of his brother, putting his hands on his hips.

"Can you please be a bit quieter?" Edge said softly.

Blue turned to him "WH- oh! He already fell asleep?"

Edge nodded. Papyrus raised one nonexistent eyebrow, before noticing the sleeping Red that Edge was holding.

"Can you teleport us home?" Blue looked towards Papyrus.

"yeah," he answered in monotone.

Edge lowered his eyes sadly. Blue grabbed Papyrus's hand, and seeing that Papyrus wanted nothing to do with Edge, grabbed the intimidating skeleton's hand with his free one.  Edge closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was in what looked like a copy of his house. He then realized with a start that he was not holding onto Red. He reached behind himself, and was relieved to feel the fabric of his brother's jacket.

 _Wait..._ He thought. _Was he holding onto me that tightly the entire time?_   _He must have been... Oh my god._ Edge snickered.

Papyrus looked towards him distrustfully, and Blue tilted his head.

"What is it?"

"Red's like a -nyeheh- a backpack. I'm not even holding onto him, look." Edge held both arms up to demonstrate this. 

Blue giggled. Edge maneuvered Red so he was holding him bridal style, and the sleeping skeleton cuddled into him, seeking warmth. 

"Ummm... What should I do with him...?"

"put him on the couch. then follow me. i wanna talk."

Edge nodded and gently set his sleeping brother on the couch, before looking to Papyrus, who was now at the door, still staring at him rather coldly.

"Paps, where are Frisk and Chara?"

Papyrus looked to his brother and answered. "they went to muffet's. they invited me, but i wanted to wait for you and red." 

He walked out the door, followed by Edge.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Edge felt his arm grabbed tightly, and the scene in front of him changed to that of Waterfall. He and Papyrus were now in a medium-size cave that didn't seem to have any tunnels leading into it. 

Looking towards Papyrus, Edge was taken by surprise as he felt his soul being tugged out of his body. Papyrus's eyesocket was glowing orange, and one of his hands was surrounded by a glow of the same hue.

 _Oh._ Edge thought. _Of course he's angry at me... he's got every right to be._

Papyrus growled. " **you're a sick freak, you know?** "

"I know." Edge answered quietly, his voice wavering. 

Papyrus felt the anger from when he had first seen what had been done to Red bubbling up inside him again.

He brought his hand to the left, slamming Edge against the nearest wall. Edge hit the side of the cavern and fell to the ground.

" **why did you do what you did to him, then?** "

"I don't know..." He answered, barely loud enough for Papyrus to hear.

"sit up, and tell me what happened. don't lie, and don't leave anything out." Papyrus ordered after some thought.

Edge sat up. "After I uh... hit you... Sa- er... Red showed up and knocked me away from you. I grabbed him right before he teleported away. He yelled at the flower, I don't know his name, to get you and those two humans to safety. He told Blue to go too, but he refused to leave Red alone. I attacked them first, and instead of attacking me back immediately, He asked me to drop the whole thing and go with him and Blue. I refused and attacked them again. He fired a blaster at me. I guess that made him tired, because during my next attack, he got hit in the shoulder. Blue immediately moved him away, and I was closing in on where they were when he confronted me again. He did a really good job. He can dodge really well. I anticipated one of the times when he was running in to attack, though, and I was able to catch him off guard. I picked him up by his soul... I told Red to come out or I would... um... I threatened to kill Blue. Blue told him not to come out, so I..." He cut himself off.

Papyrus's eyesockets narrowed. "what did you do?"

"I... ripped out one of his ribs."

Papyrus's eyesocket glowed once again and Edge felt his soul being turned blue.

" **you what.** " 

"I..." Edge winced at the look of absolute fury on Papyrus's face.

" **what else happened?** " Papyrus asked, holding back his anger for the moment.

"...R-Red yelled at me to stop, and jumped towards me. He went to try and heal Red and I... remembered something? ...I don't really know why I remembered _that_ of all things..."

" **what did you remember?** " Papyrus questioned forcefully.

"Well... at first it was really... well... blurry. Red noticed something was off though. He approached me, I don't know where he got the courage to do that, let alone what he did next, but... he hugged me. I was a bit shocked at first, but then I remembered something else. It was a long time ago... It was storming, and we were freezing because we had nowhere to go. Everyone we'd met had tried to hurt us, and we were both starving. Red more than me... He always refused to eat and gave it to me... Anyways... we were wedged in a little shelter as far as we could get out of the wind... He was in front of me, trying to keep me from freezing when he himself was covered in frost... I don't know why I remembered that. I was wondering why he'd done that for me, and why he still cared about me... after everything I did to him. Then I remembered... I don't know what it was, but it was real... I remembered leaving Red out in the snow... leaving him to _die_... and a few other things I... regret. I was terrible." Edge closed his eyes and took a deep breath before going on. "He asked me to come with him and Blue, and I went with them. I still couldn't figure out why he forgave me, and I can't now either. He's so much better than me... He deserves to be happy."

Papyrus thought for a minute.

Slowly, he answered, "i'll give you another chance. if red actually forgave you like you said, then it's his choice anyways, not mine. but know this:  if you ever hurt any of them..." His eyesockets went dark and cold. " **you're gonna have a bad time. got it?** " 

Edge nodded. "Yes. Th-thank you..."

Papyrus stood, and after a second of thought, held his hand out to Edge. Edge hesitated a moment, before taking it. Papyrus blipped them back to the front door of the house.

"One thing before we go in..." Edge said, earning a raised eyebrow from Papyrus. "I just want to say... I'm sorry about everything... it just occurred to me that I never said it..."

"i'll forgive you. as long as you don't hurt my family, i'll consider you part of it." part of him was still angry, but he pushed it aside. Edge's words had sounded sincere enough.

He opened the door and the two walked into the house.

-

_Edge's journal_

_Entry 1_

_I moved in with Blue and his brother after we got back. Blue insisted that we also give him a nickname, so now no one is Sans or Papyrus anymore. It's kind of confusing to me, but I guess I'll get used to it. Anyways, Red decided to call him Stretch, and Blue picked up the name too. Other me doesn't seem to care, so the name stuck. The two humans, whose names I learned were Frisk and Chara, have left to try to make their way through the underground. Flowey (that's the flower's name) went with them to make sure they would be okay. It's kind of strange, seeing people be so nice to each other. I try, but I do get frustrated and yell sometimes. I always feel terrible after I do, especially if Red is around._

_Red avoids me as much as possible. I think I make him uncomfortable... I might talk with him soon but I don't want to scare him..._

_Stretch has been paying close attention to me, probably trying to make sure I don't hurt anyone. He's stopped doing it as often, but I know he still doesn't trust me. It's not as if he doesn't have reasons, but it's kind of annoying..._

_Blue's full of energy all of the time, but he and I share a lot of opinions, so we get along pretty well. We even sparred awhile back, because we were bored... Stretch did NOT seem to like that..._   
  


_Entry 2_

_The kids actually did it! I don't know what happened, but the barrier's gone! We watched a beautiful sunset on the surface, and ended up staying on the mountain long after the stars came out. We even climbed to the top so we could see better. Red and Stretch were leaning on each other. Stretch looked at Red and said something like "you got your wish,". Red nodded and hugged him. He looks so happy around Stretch. I've figured out by now that they're a thing. I'm mostly glad he's happy._   
  


_Entry 3_

_Monster gold is actually worth a lot more on the surface than it is in the underground. We had a lot more than we thought and were able to buy a nice house with a beautiful view of Ebbot. It's got enough rooms for everyone, so Frisk, Chara, Flowey, Red, Blue, Stretch and I all live here together. It's pretty great. There's a platform on top of the house that you can look at the stars from, and Red and Stretch spend hours up there. They're so cute together. I'm normally not the kind of person for ships, as Undyne calls them, but I can't help but ship them._

_Red's warming up around me... he's stopped flinching whenever I walk into the room. Progress at last!_

_Entry 4_

_I'm going to be an uncle!!!!!!!!_  
_I'M GOING TO BE AN UNCLE!!!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A) Edge failed at being edgy
> 
> B) I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote this.


	17. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter

 

Chara looked around at all their friends. Frisk stood to the left of them with Flowey wrapped around their shoulder, staring happily into the sunset. On Frisk's left stood Edge, with Blue standing on the other side of him. Looking to the right, Chara saw Stretch, who had Red on his shoulders. Both were smiling, staring in awe at the sky and the colors of the sunset and just at how big the surface was. Alphys and Undyne stood on the other side of the two, holding hands and blushing profusely. 

They smiled. _About time,_ they thought. Asgore was standing on the other side of them, and he also looked happy.

At their far left, Queen Toriel was standing next to Blue. Blue was blushing a little bit, and Toriel had noticed. The queen chuckled. (I'm sorry I ship Soriel way to much... I considered edgeberry but I really wouldn't know how to write it... Whatever. It's not like It's really gonna come in that much.)

Everyone was so happy, and Chara was glad that they were. There was, however, one problem. _Two_ problems, actually. There were two people who hadn't completely gotten their happy ending.

Chara pulled themself out of their thought and noticed that Edge and Blue had left.

They heard Stretch's voice from their right. "someone's gotta keep them out of trouble."

Stretch walked back into the underground, in the opposite direction of where his brothers had gone. Chara heard Red snicker from his place on Stretch's shoulders.

Alphys called them out. "Ugh, really, you two? Whatever. Someone's gotta actually do something." She took off down the path after Blue and Edge. 

"W-wait up!" Undyne called, following as quickly as she could.

That just left Frisk, Asgore, and Toriel. Toriel was about to say something, but a glare from Asgore stopped her, and she left down the path, trying to avoid an awkward situation.

Asgore approached the two humans. "It seems that everyone is quite eager to set off..." He was silent for a moment. "I don't remember there being two humans... Nonetheless... Do you two have somewhere to go?"

Frisk shook their head and looked to Chara. 

"Nope." Chara answered.

"So what will you do now?" The goat monster asked.

Frisk and Chara looked at each other, before Frisk spoke up. "I'll probably stay with the skeletons... I don't know about Chara." 

"I don't know. Everyone's my good friends, so as long as we're all nearby, I don't really care where I stay." Chara answered.

"So you're going to stay with us?" Asgore asked hopefully.

"Yeah, I think we will." Frisk smiled.

Asgore smiled. "We should probably catch up with your friends, then." He set off down the path. "Come on, my children." He smiled, holding out both hands for them to take.

Frisk and Chara each took a hand and left as the last rays of sunshine disappeared.

They reached the others, who were in a clearing, talking among each other. Chara looked up, and upon seeing a few stars beginning to show, ran back up the path. Frisk followed them, wondering what they were up to. Everyone ended up following them back to where they'd been watching the sunset. The group watched, confused, as Chara ran back towards the exit from the underground. Instead of going through, however, they found a handhold in the rocky wall near the exit, and began scaling the steep slope as best they could, moving up the mountain. Frisk hesitated a moment before following. Blue broke away from the group, beginning to climb up, himself.

"HUMANS!! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" He called after them. 

When they didn't answer, he continued following them. Stretch rolled his eyesockets and began to follow the three of them, shifting Red to his back with a "hold on tight," and climbing as quickly as he could.

Chara, in front, reached a large ledge and climbed onto it, helping Frisk up afterwards. Everyone had followed them up, and soon, only Asgore was left at the bottom. He looked up towards them and considered something for a moment, before yelling up to them.

"You be careful. I'm just going to wait down here." 

Toriel spoke up. "He's scared of heights."

"Oohhhh that explains that." Frisk giggled. "So Chara... Why the heck are we up here?"

Chara simply smiled. "Look up."

The small group turned their heads up towards the sky, and collectively gasped. The sky was alight with millions of stars.

Alphys and Undyne sat down on the edge of the cliff, leaning on each other and staring at the sky in awe.

Stretch sat down, placing Red in his lap. "looks like you got your wish," He murmured.

Red smiled and leaned into him. The two stared up happily.

"wanna see if we can get to the top of the mountain?" Stretch asked Red quietly.

"y-yes!" Red answered in an excited whisper.

Stretch picked his boyfriend up and put him on his back. He began to look around for handholds and footholds. He climbed up a good way before noticing a ledge that was big enough to stand on. He teleported himself up to it. He looked for another, and spotting one further up, he teleported up to it, and so on.

Pretty soon, he could see the top of the mountain. He decided to climb up towards it, and not waste his magic anymore. 

Upon reaching it, he looked around, letting out a breath. 

"woah." He said simply.

Sitting down, he moved Red off his back and back onto is lap. Red didn't move, he was so in awe of what he was seeing. The pinpricks of light were all around them. It was like they were in a colossal dome made up of stars.

"i-it's so pretty!" Red grinned.

"yeah, just like you." Stretch flirted. 

Red's face went scarlet and he pulled up his hood, hitting Stretch in the face with the hood's fur lining in the process.

"pbbth... it's true, though." Stretch brushed the fluff away from his face, smiling.

Red felt his blushing intensify. "sh-shut up..."

"i love you, too." Stretch snickered. "you're so cute when you're flustered."

Red snorted. A plan for revenge was forming in his skull. Quickly, he turned around and clanked his teeth against Stretch's. Stretch's cheekbones turned bright orange, and he covered his face with his hands.

"heheh... c-can't take a taste of your own medicine?" He joked. "g-get dunked on, sucker." He turned back around and settled down, leaning into Stretch.

Stretch wrapped his arms around Red and the two of them stared at the stars together. After a long time, Stretch heard soft  snores begin to come from Red.

"you seriously fell asleep?" He asked the sleeping skeleton, knowing he wouldn't get an answer.

Red cuddled into him, and he felt completely content.

-

A few days later, Frisk and Chara slipped out of the skeleton household, and began making their way towards the mountain. There was something they had to do. Reaching the exit to the cave, the two humans looked at each other for a moment, before walking in.

The walk to Snowdin was long, and by the time they got there, the humans were exausted. They stopped in the middle of the forest, sitting down to eat the tacos they'd brought from home. After they both finished, they walked deeper into the forest until they reached the machine. It was a wreck, but both humans had high hopes for their plan, and were pretty sure they could get it to work.

Frisk looked at their friend. "Ready?" They asked.

Chara nodded. "Yeah." 

They'd been talking to Undyne about this idea for a while. She'd confirmed that it might work, given that they had enough determination. She had, however, been curious as to why they were asking about the rift. 

_"Y-Yeah, I suppose you c-could open it again with enough d-determination..." She had said. "Why d-do you want to know?"_

_"No reason! We were just wondering, because it's kind of interesting." Frisk had answered hurriedly._

The two humans stared at the ruined machine.

"Good thing we don't need that." Chara remarked. 

Frisk nodded. 

"How do we even get this to work?" they asked.

"Undyne said we just needed determination." Chara answered slowly.

"So like we're going back to a save point or?" Frisk thought aloud.

"We could try that... I'm not sure though." 

"Well, we should do something instead of standing here all day, so let's try." 

"Okay." Chara concluded.

The two of them closed their eyes and focused on what they wanted to do. There was a sound kind of like a rip, and they looked up to see that the rift was back. It was pretty small, and it probably wouldn't last long, but they didn't need it for too long. Just long enough to get to New Home and back. 

Chara stepped back, smirking to themself. "Ladies first." They grinned, looking at Frisk and gesturing towards the portal.

Frisk glared at Chara and ran behind them, before pushing them through the portal in front of them. 

"Aww, come on!" Chara complained.

Frisk walked ahead of them. "Come on, we need to hurry."

The two of them walked towards Snowdin, not bothering to find the path, as there would be more people there. Awhile later, the small town began to come into view through the trees. Frisk and Chara began to walk slower, moving along as stealthily as possible. Reaching the river, they followed along it, slowly being forced to move further towards the town. Soon, they were standing at the edge of a path that led to the river. Crossing it meant risking being seen.

"What do we do?" Frisk whispered.

Chara, beside them, shrugged. 

The two humans heard water lapping against something and look towards the river to see a boat glide by. The person steering the boat wore a dark purple cloak. The hood was up, and their face was shrouded in darkness. 

"Would you like to ride in my boat?" A whispery voice came from them. 

There was no one standing on the path, so the two humans assumed the person was talking to them.

"Well? I haven't got all day. Do you need a ride, or not? It's 50 g." The whisper had an annoyed tone to it, now.

Frisk and Chara glanced at each other.

Chara stepped out and pulled the requested amount out of their pocket. "Yeah."

"Climb on." The river person said, taking the gold. "Where to?" 

"Hotland." Frisk answered quickly.

The boat lurched forward, knocking the children off balance.

"Tra la la.... The waters are wild today... That's good luck." The river person murmured.

Before either human could react, they had reached their destination. 

"Tra la la. Come again some time."

\- - -

Flowey transplanted himself a bit further from the house. _Where the hell are those kids?_ He asked himself. They hadn't been in the house when everyone woke up, and upon checking the area around the house, the other inhabitants found that they weren't in the yard or woods, either. 

Looking up towards the mountain, he sighed. _What are those two thinking?_

He plunged into the ground and resurfaced.

... and almost got stepped on. 

His surprised expression soon turned to annoyance as he saw who the offending foot belonged to.

"Frisk! Where have you been? Everyone's been worried si-"

"Yeah, yeah, blah blah, We made everyone worried sick."

"What were you even doing?!" Flowey asked.

"Helping someone out." Chara answered. "You remember MK, right?" 

They stepped out of the way to show the monster standing behind them.

"How did they get a soul!?" Flowey asked, confused.

"The same way you're gonna get one. We stole two from the other timeline." Chara responded.

"YOU DID WHAT?!?"

"We stole them from the other timeline."

"YOU COULD HAVE DIED!!!" Flowey yelled. (OOO look the dreemurr mom instincts return.)

"But we didn't." Frisk answered.

"BUT- UGHGH THAT'S NOT THE POINT." the flower fumed.

"You sound like Asgore." Chara snickered.

"Well Asgore is a mature, kind, and caring adult, so I'm going to take that as a compliment." Flowey pouted slightly.

"Anyways, we're gonna give you a soul." Frisk said. 

Setting their backpack down, they pulled a medium-sized container out of it. A soft green glow emanated from it. Flowey drew in a breath.

"The other Asgore has those locked up tight. How did you manage to get them?"

Frisk snickered. "Fluffybuns isn't as mean as he makes out to be. He didn't hesitate to give us these when we explained the situation. Apparently Alphys was close to a breakthrough in cloning the souls anyways, so he didn't seem to mind it at all. Especially since we told him who you really are."

Flowey started. "How... how did you figure that out?" He asked quietly.

Chara piped up. "We were thinking about what was different from this timeline to the other one, and we think we figured it out. This one's a lot nicer, that was obvious, and people have swapped personalities. We ran into the version of MK from the other universe on the way back here, and well... We didn't remember seeing them anywhere here, but we did remember seeing Azzy. He acts pretty much the same as MK in the other universe except, well... meaner. So if Azzy and MK were the two who swapped, we wanted to figure out what the other 'role' was. And, well, we remembered fighting MK in this universe, and how much like you they were as temmie. I think you get the idea."

Flowey stared at them.

"Yeah so anyways take the soul." Frisk opened the canister and the soul floated out onto their hand.  

They held it out to Flowey. Flowey hesitated.

"Come _on_ already!" They complained impatiently.

Flowey closed his eyes, steeled himself, and grabbed the soul with a vine. Slowly, he opened them again. He lost his balance and tottered for a moment on one foot before righting himself.

 _Wait... foot_? he thought. He bent his arms -those were new, too- and stared at his hands, clenching and unclenching them. 

"Woah..." His hands went up to his mouth. 

He even _sounded_ different. 

"I just realized how tired I was of being a flower..." A few tears squeezed out of his eyes before he ran forward and tackled Frisk with a hug. 

He embraced them tightly. Chara joined them, and Asriel wrapped his arm around them, including them.

After a moment, he backed out of the hug. "We should probably get going..."

Frisk and Chara nodded. The latter looked back at MK. Reaching out with one arm, they draped it over their friend's shoulders, and grabbed Frisk's hand with their extra. Frisk, getting the memo, grabbed Asriel's hand. 

Chara began to skip down the path, dragging everyone along with them. I say skip, but it was really more of a cross between that and a sashay. Frisk noticed the way they were skipping. They knew that skip from somewhere... _What was it?_

"WEEEEE'RRREEEE..." Chara held out the word.

 _Oh no._ Frisk knew what it was now.

"OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD!! THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ! BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAAAAAUUUUSE!!!!! OF ALL THE WONDERFUL THINGS HE DOES!" Chara sang loudly.

Asriel and MK were extremely confused.

Frisk glanced at Asriel and shrugged. They began to skip along with Chara.

The two of them both sang the same verse over and over and over again.

Asriel and MK began to catch on, and both started to skip. MK tripped a couple times, but eventually got it. By the time they reached the house, all four of them were singing at the top of their lungs. The out-of-tune chorus decrescendo-ed from _fortissimo_ to _forte,_ and from that, diminuendo-ed down to _mezzo forte,_ then _mezzo piano,_ and then, as they reached the front door, _piano._ They didn't stop there, though. They got even quieter, bringing the dynamic down to _pianissimo_ and growing ever quieter. Soon it turned into a competition of who could sing the quietest.

Frisk dropped out first, shaking their head at the others as if they were somehow more mature than them. Asriel ended up a giggling mess on the floor, because apparently it was too much for him to bear. 

Chara seemed to be way too determined, so MK ended up dropping out just to give them the satisfaction of winning. 

Chara grinned, rather out of breath from all the singing. "VICTORY!!!" They yelled.

Frisk walked over to their phone, which was sitting on the dining room table. Picking it up, they pressed the _on_ button.

_20 missed messages._

_9 missed calls._

\- - -

Stretch walked down the sidewalk, hand-in-hand with Red. _Where are they?_  He was getting extremely worried.

A vibrating in his pocket startled him. Quickly, he pulled his phone out and checked it. 

_1 new message:_

_Frisk: We're at the house. Sorry for scarin you. We had to do something important._

He grinned. Red looked up at him.

"what's it say?" he asked.

"the kids are at home." Stretch answered.

"finally. what were they even doing?" Red questioned.

"dunno. let's head back."

Red nodded. The two disappeared in a flash of orange magic.

They appeared back at the house.

"why are there two unknown children here?" Red asked, staring at Asriel and MK.

"I'm not unknown." Asriel huffed. 

"yeah you are." Stretch said lazily.

"Can it, smokestack."

"wait, no you're not. i stand corrected." he chuckled.

Red stared at the boss monster. "flowey?"

"yeah. i'm asriel now, though."

"huh." _I should really be more shocked,_  He thought.

\- - -

Stretch and Red sat in their room, discussing something.

"-we gotta make it as obnoxious and stupid as possible." Red was saying.

"yeah, but... how?" Stretch was a bit confused.

"just kick down the door and yell it." Red snickered.

"umm okay... like, right now?" Stretch asked.

"yeah. put me on your shoulders and put on the stupidest face ever." Red snickered. "th-that's probably not hard to do, considering how dumb your face already is."

"oh, my dear red, you're mixing us up again. i have a _beautiful_ face. it is you who are cursed with a permanent idiotic expression."

Red moved quickly and pecked Stretch on the cheek, causing the taller skeleton's smug face to change to bewilderment and flustered-ness.

"yeah, uh-huh. it's _definitely_ me who has a dumb face." Red smirked.

Stretch stood up picked up his boyfriend, setting the short skeleton on his shoulders. "you win. i don't see what that had to do with anything, though. let's just get on with the plan."

Red grinned. "okay... 3... 2... 1... go!"

Stretch got a running start and jumped, slamming his feet into the door and breaking it, forcing it open. He landed outside the door, with the inhabitants of the house (all of which were in the living room, which had an easy view of them) staring at him, confused.

"RED AND I ARE GONNA HAVE A KID!!!"

The living room was silent for a moment, before Blue stood up. "REALLY!?"

Stretch nodded, and so did Red from on his shoulders.

"undyne we need you to check our magic levels and stuff so no one dies." Stretch said, a bit more serious now.

"O-okay."

"EDGE AND I ARE GOING TO GET BABY CLOTHES FOR THEM." Blue looked at Edge, who nodded. 

"Anyone else wanna come?" He asked. 

Frisk stood up. "Me!!"

\- - -

The next day...

Stretch snuck up behind Edge, who was sitting on the couch writing something. Peeking silently over his shoulder, he read the last few lines of it.

 _"I'm gonna be an uncle._  
_I'M GONNA BE AN UNCLE!!"_  
it read.

Snickering, he jumped and teleported right next to Edge on the couch.

"you already are an uncle." He said, right after appearing.

"AARGH FUCK! STRETCH WHAT THE HE- Wait. What did you say?"

"i said you're already an uncle you have been for two hours. sheesh, are you deaf?" Stretch almost couldn't hold in his happiness.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. You did the spell." Edge asked.

"yep." Stretch beamed

"Two hours ago?"

"yep."

"And you didn't tell anyone before?"

"nope. 'cept undyne, leastways."

"Are you kidding me."

"uhh no?"

"Well okay then. Where's the kid?"

"up in the room with red. you should see him, he's fawning over them like crazy. hasn't taken his eyes off them yet." Stretch grinned.

"Do they have a name yet?" Edge asked, standing to walk towards the room.

"yep. their name is nova. and they're the best little smol babybones and i love them so much and i just they're the best and i can't" Stretch answered, bubbling with happiness.

He disappeared. Edge opened the door to the room Stretch shared with Red.

Red was sitting on the bed next to Stretch. Both of them were extremely ecstatic, and If Edge didn't know the circumstances, he would've said they were madmen. 

Then again, he was pretty sure they were anyways.

Red looked up and saw Edge standing at the door. He grinned and motioned him to come over.

"hhhhhhoooly shit bro look at this fuckin' cinnamon roll they're so damn adorable and they're the best little babybones that ever existed and and and and and holy shit i think i'm gonna die of how perfect this child is."

Edge snorted. Then he looked at the kid. _Holy shit Red's right. That cinnamon roll must be protected._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dumb ending is dumb.
> 
> Ok at the time I wrote rhis I didn't headcanon that skeletons got pregnant and shit so basically how that worked was it was a spell that requires a lot of magic and is kinda risky and stuff so basically two monsters do the spell and poof! There's a kid!
> 
> Send help I don't know what I'm doing....
> 
>  
> 
> HhhHHhHHhHhh
> 
> Anyways, we're done here. There was a sequel thing but I never really ended up working on it? I'll put it here if I ever do...."


End file.
